You call this normal?
by TelevisionOverload
Summary: Alex was starting to think things would normal out. At least until January 1st. But no. That just couldn't work out. Malibu for Christmas 2012, she's with Tony Stark. Then The Mandarin had to show up. He was definitely not part of her plan. She doesn't account for ending up saving the world. Again. She's starting to really hate her life.
1. Prologue

**I was originally going to wait until I finished my story to publish this. But I waited too long, and the first 7 chapters erased themselves.**

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Prologue: Aftermath

I never thought about what would happen after to me after The Battle of New York. I had thought I could go back to my normal life, and live as Mackenzie Harbor's daughter again, even though I knew I wasn't his kid. I had known that for a real long time. What I didn't count on was S.H.I.E.L.D following me into Stuttgart and arresting my 'Father' after his appearance. I also didn't count on finding out I was a Norse God's daughter, and my Mom was probably the dumbest woman alive; no offence Jane Foster, who for some reason also fell in love with Thor. I never thought I'd have to send my 'Father' bail, so he could leave prison. I never thought he wouldn't take it, and Don Rio would have to break him out. I never planned for any of those things, that's why I lost everything when it happened. I didn't count on a lot of that, and I had to do a lot of things I never wanted to do, like asking for help. Things got out of hand, and I had to get a roommate. Then I lost my roommate and had to move in with Tony Stark. A lot of stuff I never wanted to happen did indeed happen. But this isn't my story. This is the story of a man named Tony. That's right, I called him Tony. We're one a first name basis now, he's my friend now. This is Tony Stark's story, about how he screwed up, then how he fixed it.

_"A famous man once said, 'We create our own demons.' Who said that? What does that even mean? Doesn't matter. I said it 'cause he said it. So now, he was famous and that basically getting said by two well-known guys. I don't, uh... I'm gonna start again. Let's track this from the beginning."_

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**Please put a review in the box because my self esteem is at an all time low and I kind of need it right now because life sucks. **


	2. Chapter 1

**I'm trying to do this in 3rd person, but it's kind of narrated by Alex. So I screwed up big time with this chapter.**

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Chapter 1: Creating demons

It was 1999 in Berns, Switzerland. Tony, Happy, and a woman who is not Pepper were at the New Year's Eve party at some hotel. Tony had given some big speech that he didn't even know what it was about, which I guess wasn't so odd for him back then. "Half hour till the ball drops." Happy said, walking over to them. "Hey, do you want..." Tony started to say to the woman, "Tony Stark, great speech, man!" One of the party guests asked. Happy moved the man away from Tony and the woman. "I got it." He said as he was doing it. "I gave a speech?" Tony asked, a confusing response, considering the fact he was the one who gave that speech. "How was it?" He asked, "Pitiful." Happy said as the woman said, "Unintelligible." Tony seemed to be pleased at that, "Really?" He asked. "Mm-hmm." The woman said, nodding along. "It's my favorite kind, a winning combo." Tony said, grinning. Tony grabbed hold of the woman's arm and they started walking away. "Where are we going?" She asked, "Uh...to town on each other, probably back in your room. Cause I also wanna see your research." He said. Classic perverted Tony. "Okay, you can see my research, but that's... I'm not gonna show you my town." She responded.

As Tony and the woman were walking away a man intercepted them. "Mr. Stark, Ho Yinsen." The man said, holding out his hand to shake. "Oh, I finally met a man called Ho." Tony said, grinning. The woman just rolled her eyes and smiled. Tony and Mr. Yinsen shook hands. Then Tony turned back to the woman. "Come here." He said, waving her to come closer. "I would like to introduce you to our guest, Dr. Wu." Mr. Yinsen said. Mr. Yinsen moved them towards Wu, who was a heart surgeon, a pretty good one at that. "Oh, this guy." Tony said. "Mr. Stark." Dr. Wu said, holding out his hand for Tony to shake. "Hey." Tony said, shaking the guy's hand. "You're a heart doctor. She's going to need a cardiologist, FIA." He said. Tony turned back to the woman and Happy, started blowing on his party horn and walked away with her. "Bye." The woman said. "Perhaps another time." Mr. Yinsen said, not knowing what irony it would bring. Tony and Mr. Yinsen did indeed meet each other again, but it wasn't on good terms. It was in a cave in Afghanistan, where Mr. Yinsen died saving Tony and caused it all.

_"It started in Berns, Switzerland, 1999, the old days. I never thought they'd come back to bite me. Why would they?" Tony told us, back in the room. Yep, guys, I'm still telling you this story. This is just what happened to Tony and the woman you guys don't know about yet. _

As Tony and the woman walked towards the elevator an enthusiastic man with long hair came up towards them. "Mr. Stark! Oh, wow! Hey, Tony! Aldrich Killian." The overly enthusiastic man said. The man walked with a cane, even though he couldn't have been any older than in his late-twenties. "I'm a big fan of your work!" He said, turning to the still unnamed woman. "My work?" She asked. "Who isn't? She needs me." Tony said, grinning. "Well, of course. But, Miss Hansen, my organization been tracking your research since year two of MIT." He said, sounding an awful lot like a stalker. Tony, Miss Hansen, and Happy walked into the elevator. "Yeah, we're full." Happy said, holding his arm out, hoping to keep Aldrich from coming inside. He still ducked under Happy's arms and moved into the elevator. "Oh, wow. He made it. He made the cut." Tony said sarcastically. "What floor are you going to, pal?" Happy asked. "Oh, now, that is an appropriate question. The ground floor, actually. I've a proposal I'm putting together with myself. It's a privately funded think tank called, Advanced Idea Mechanics." He said, still in awe from seeing Tony Stark and whoever Miss Hansen was. He held out two business cards towards Tony and Miss Hansen. "Okay." She said, taking the cards.

"Uh...she'll take both. One to throw away and one to not call." He said. "Advanced Idea Mechanics, or AIM for short." He said, pointing to the logo on his shirt. "Do you get it?" Aldrich asked, trying to impress them. "I see that, cause it's on your t-shirt." Tony said, not really caring about whatever AIM was. "Oh!" He said. Aldrich Killian was completely fooled by Tony Stark's fake nice behavior. Miss Hansen seemed to genuinely try and be nice to him, even though she didn't like him. Tony must have been this man's idol, and he didn't care about his ideas. "Ladies, follow the mullet." Tony said, talking to the women in the elevator. Happy led them out of there, "Thank you, I'll call you." Miss Hansen said, walking out of the elevator, even though she didn't really mean it. They were about to leave the elevator when Tony stopped him from getting off. "I'm titillated by the notion of working with you." Tony lied, he was a convincing liar. He didn't tell us that part. "Yeah?" He asked. "Yeah, cheese clown. I'm going to ditch these clowns; I'll see you up on the roof in five minutes." Tony said. He stepped out of the elevator. "I'm just going to try to get my beef wet real quick. You know what I'm talking about?" He asked. I don't even want to know what that means. "Okay. I'll see you up there." He said, letting the elevator door close behind him. "Damn Bet'cha." Tony said. Aldrich was going up to the room.

Later on in Miss Hansen's room

"Come on! I thought that was just a theory." Tony said, clearly not believing her. "Well, it was. If I'm right, we can access the area of the brain that governs repair." She said. They were looking at a computer monitor, which had a graph of the brain. "Wow." He said, impressed. "And chemically recode it." She responded. "That's incredible. Essentially you're hacking into the genetic operating system..." He started. "Genetic operating system..." She repeated. "...of an organism." He finished, "Exactly. Yes." She said. "Wow." He said again. Happy decided to mess with her plant. "Can you..." She started, "What?" He asked. "Can you not touch my plant? It's not...she doesn't like it. She prefers..." She said, trying to figure out how to explain. "She's not like the others." Tony answered for her. "Interference is better." She responded. "Come on. Let's go in the bedroom." He said to her. I wanted him to stop the story right there but I didn't say anything. I just sat there with my eyes closed, listening to his story. "That's cute, but..." She started to say. "Happy, leave her fichus alone." He said, dragging her into the other room. "No, seriously don't." She said, turning back to Happy. "So you're starting with plants?" He said, as they walked into the bedroom. "For now, yeah. I'm calling it Extremis." She said.

As they entered the room, Hogan touched her plant and pulled some of the leaves off. "Well, it's...human application." She said. "Human application." He repeated. "Exactly! Exactly. It's dentra-degree vitalization." She said. "It's revolutionary." He said, "Disease prevention..." She said, "It can change the world." Tony added. As they were talking, the plant which Happy ripped the leaf off of started to regenerate. Yep, I used the word regenerate! If you didn't get the Doctor Who reference, then you need to start watching it. "Even limb regrowth." Maya said, not knowing what was going on in the other room. "You're the most gifted woman I've ever met. "Wow!" She said. "Uh... in Switzerland." He admitted. "Mm, that's better." She said. "You're sweet." He said. "Wow, you're seeing things." She said. She took off his glasses, as he started to laugh. "You almost bought it, didn't you?" He asked. They started to kiss and Happy was about to close the door, the plant then decided to explode. "This is what I'm talking about, the glitch." She said. "Have you checked the telomerized algorithm?" He asked. "The what?" She asked. At that moment, Happy ran into the room and tackled Tony on the bed, to keep him safe. Even though it was absolutely nothing, he wouldn't move.

Happy must have thought that it was some kind of bomb meant for Tony. "We're good." Tony said awkwardly. Miss Hansen was just watching them with interest, as though it was funny, which it was. "Stay down." Happy said, not moving. "You're...you're right on me. I made it." Tony said. Happy got off Tony, "What was that?" He asked. "It's a glitch in my work..." She started. "Look, she was just talking about glitches happening." Tony added. "It's not Y2K?" Happy asked. "No." Miss Hansen said. They could hear people celebrating outside. "Hey!" Tony said. "Happy New Year." Happy responded, "Happy New Year." Tony repeated. "Happy New Year." Miss Hansen said. "Alright, I'll see you in the mornin'." Tony said, shaking hands with Happy. "You good?" Happy asked again. "Yep." Tony answered, just wanting him to leave the room. "I'll be right outside." Happy said. "Okay." Tony said. Happy then leaves the room, leaving Tony and Miss Hansen alone in her hotel room. What Tony seemed to forget about was that Aldrich was waiting on the roof for Tony, who would never show up.

_"So why am I telling you this? Because I had just created demons, and I didn't even know it." _

He wrote a note for her, 'You know who I am' and left it on the bedside table. Then he left the room, never looking back. He didn't even talk to her again.

_"Yeah, those were the good times. Then I moved on. After a brief soiree in an Afghan cave, I said goodbye to the party scene. Forgot that night in Switzerland. These days I'm a changed man, I'm different now. I'm well... you know who I am."_

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**Please review.**


	3. Chapter 2

**I will try and finish this story eventually.**

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Chapter 2: Christmas in Malibu

I could lie and say Thanksgiving break was uneventful, but I won't. It was kind of crazy and hectic. But that all started the day before Thanksgiving break started. Dina didn't show up for school that morning, and Deuce was freaking out. We didn't know anything about what was going on until Thanksgiving day, when I got a phone call. Turns out Don Rio broke my Dad out of prison and they all went into hiding. They didn't bother telling me that though, until Dina called me on a payphone telling me where they were and that they were ok. But that wasn't even the best part of Thanksgiving break, you know that Spiderman kid, yeah, I met him. It turns out he goes to Midtown High. Yep, Peter Parker, though I probably shouldn't have told you that. During the entire time he was having issues with the Lizard, all I did was talk to the kid. Seriously, he asked for my help on what to do. That didn't turn out well, considering the fact Jameson already hated the both of us. And he worked for Jameson. Well, let's see what happened. I got to chloroform a scientist, and nearly got killed by a giant lizard man, and Tony didn't even realize I disappeared around Midnight and came back scarred for life after being attacked by a giant lizard thing, who wasn't supposed to be a lizard. I'm not going into any further detail; if I wanted to I would have told you everything about it.

Christmas break was more eventful, starting from the point that Tony said he would take me and Pepper to Malibu. I told all my friends that I wouldn't be back in New York before New Year's. They said that they'd miss me but they hoped I'd have fun. Ok, so he was acting more like a Dad than my own Father, or 'Father'. I'm going to give you a minute to process what I just said. Ok, for those of you who didn't process it, Father = Thor 'Father' = Mackenzie Harbor. Got it now? Because I'm not fully sure that I do; everything became so confusing and weird. Not that it wasn't weird before. Ok, so to the real point, I was in Malibu with Tony and Pepper starting December 18th, 2012. It was around Christmas time and they were both still working, or Pepper was working and Tony was working on the suits. I spent most of my time helping Tony out in his lab. He was testing out a lot of new projects that he needed my help for. Some of them he didn't even need my help for, but I would rather stay in there instead of watching 'How I met your mother' with Pepper. He kept on shooting himself in the arm with his new invention. He was basically putting electromagnets into his arm. I kept on telling him to stop and let me do it, but the last time I tried to do it I nearly threw up.

"Sir, please may I request just a few hours to calibrate..." JARVIS chimed up, trying to reason with Tony. "No. Forty-eight." He said, not really paying attention to anybody but himself. He injected himself again and I cringed when I heard the noise of it going into his arm. "Ah! Micro-repeater implanting sequence complete." Tony said. I rolled my eyes and went back to my work. "As you wish, sir. I've also prepared a safety briefing for you to entirely ignore." JARVIS said. "Which I will. Right, let's do this." Tony said. "I'll read it JARVIS." I said, "Then he can completely ignore the both of us." I continued to do my work as I spoke. "Thank you ma'am, as long as you're in here he's not going to get himself killed, you've made sure of that." JARVIS said. I nodded even though I knew he couldn't see it. Dummy was in the office too, he was using a broom to clean up. "Dummy. Hi, Dummy. How did you get that cap on your head? You earned it." He said, to the robot. He stood up and walked over to him. "Hey. Hey! What are you doing round in the corner? You know what you did. Blood on my mat, handle it." He said to Dummy. Dummy started to go obey his orders, "Hey, Dummy, come here!" I yelled, looking up from my laptop.

As soon as he got close enough for me to touch him I took the dunce hat off his head. "Sir, may I remind you that you've been awake for nearly seventy-two hours." JARVIS said. Tony didn't even pay any attention to JARVIS. He spoke to the Iron Man suits in the cage, "Focus up, ladies. Good evening, and welcome to the birthing suit. I'm pleased to announce the imminent arrival of your bouncing, bad-ass, baby brother." He said. I raised an eyebrow, "Earth to Iron Man." I said, "We don't know if this is even going to work. There's still a good chance this is going to kill you." He rolled his eyes, "It's always the negative with you." He said, "No, but you think this is going to go off without a hitch, and we don't have any proof for that." I said. "Ok, so we may not know _exactly_ what's going to happen—what are you doing anyway?" He asked. I flipped my laptop around, "I'm writing a thesis." I said, "About what?" He asked, taking a step closer while JARVIS prepared his camera. "About how quickly my life turned upside down after being sucked into the MARVEL Universe, which I then found out to be my home universe." I said in one breath. "Ok, just make sure not to be too harsh on people." He said, as if it was normal. It actually was normal in our universe. Tony then got ready to test out his new suit.

Buster and I got behind something in case it went wrong. "Start Titan and go wide, stamp in time. Mark 42 autonomous prehensile propulsion suit test. Initialize sequence." He said to JARVIS. He raised his hands and motioned to activate the Mark 42 suit. "JARVIS, drop my needle." He said. His music started playing, he moved with the music in an attempt at dancing. "Can you just get this over with in case I need to call 911?" I asked, holding up my cell phone. He wasn't too pleased that I was ready to call an ambulance. He pointed his arm where he'd been injecting himself toward the dismantled Iron Man suit on the table opposite of him. Nothing happened, "Told you." I said, feeling happy that I was right, he did all of that while sleep deprived. "Crap." He said. He hit his arm where he'd injected himself, and pointed it again at the suit on the table. This time a part of the suit flew over and attached itself to his hand. Then it extended to his arm and shoulder. He then pointed his other arm to the suit and the other arm flew over. He started laughing. "Alright, I think we got this. Send 'em all." He said. The leg part flew over and attached itself to his leg successfully. Then as another part flew over it crashed into one of the Iron Man suit glass cages, which caused him to cringe.

Then another part hurled itself at Tony and Tony deflects it with his arm which made it crash on the ground. "Probably a little fast, slow it down. Slow it down just a..." He started to say, suddenly another part of the suit shot over as he ducked. It narrowly missed hitting him in the head. "...little bit." He finished. the other parts flew over and attached themselves with force to Tony's back. Then the last one, it knocked him back until he caught himself. I cringed when it hit him, "That must have hurt." I whispered, turning to Buster. "Cool it, will you, JARVIS?" Tony asked. Then all the other parts shot over and got attached to Tony, accept for the final piece, the face, which just hovered, facing Tony. "Come on. I ain't scared of you." Tony said, squaring up against it. The face piece flew over to Tony, causing him to flip over. "I'm the best." He said, then a stray piece flew over. It caused all the pieces, except the face piece, to fly off. "As always, sir, a great pleasure watching you work." JARVIS said, with a hint of humor in his voice. I grinned, and stepped out from behind the workstation. I went over to help him clean up the mess and get him off the ground.

_"And I guess seventy-two hours isn't a long time between siestas. Didn't think it could get any worse. Then I had to go and turn on the TV." _

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**Please review this story.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Working on re-putting them in.**

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Chapter 3: The Mandarin shows himself

_"That's when he happened."_

"Some people call me a terrorist, I consider myself a teacher. America, ready for another lesson. In 1864 in Sand Creek Colorado the U.S. military waited till the friendly Cheyenne braves all gone hunting, waited to attack and slaughter their families left behind, and claim their land. Thirty-nine hours ago the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait was attacked. I... I... I did that. A quaint military church filled with wives and children, of course. The soldiers were out on maneuver, the braves were away. President Ellis you continue to resist my attempts to educate you, sir. And now, you've missed me again. You know who I am, you don't know where I am, and you'll never see me coming." He said. He somehow cut into all TV stations and channels to deliver us this message. He called himself The Mandarin, he called himself a teacher. He was a monster, but he couldn't see that. Finally, when the TV fixed itself every news channel in the world started talking about The Mandarin and the people that were going to fix it. The country was in shock, a terrorist was threatening the entire country, and President Ellis himself. That dude didn't even have a year under his belt. He became President when Biden didn't want to fill Obama's shoes. President Ellis was one of the best Presidents our country had been under in a long time. For a few days, the country was just trying to figure out what to do.

Then President Ellis got the courage to come on TV and tell us all what they were going to do. "Central to my Administration's response to this terrorist event, is a newly minted resource. I know him as Colonel James Rhodes; the American people will soon know him as the Iron Patriot." He said, as if Rhodey was supposed to deal with all of that. Bill Maher even talked about it on his show, "And how is President Ellis responding? By taking the guy they call War Machine and giving him a paint job." He said. I kind of zoned out, thinking about it for a while, "At least this time it wasn't freakin' aliens." Was the next thing I heard him say. That one, Tony and I watched the night it came on, late at night after The Mandarin had come on and threatened everyone. Then Joan Rivers talked about it on 'The Fashion Police'. "Same suit, but painted red white and blue. Look at That. And they also renamed him Iron Patriot. You know, just in case the paint was too subtle." She had said. She and her people continued making fun of the Iron Patriot suit. I wasn't really paying attention to that because Rhodey, Tony, and I were at some Steakhouse/Bar they were used to going to. Tony and I were laughing it up in there, we were having a great time, you could tell Rhodey wasn't though.

"It tested well with focus groups, alright?" Rhodey said, agitated. "I am Iron Patriot..." Tony said in a mocking tone. I was trying not to choke on my food as I was laughing so hard. "Listen, War Machine was a little too aggressive, alright? This sends a better message." Rhodey said, trying to defend his suit. "Aggressive's good in a case like this." I said, my mouth full, "That might be what we need." Tony turned back to Rhodey like 'See', "She's 12, she doesn't know about..." Rhodey said, pausing when he saw my 'Yes I do' face, "She's not the only judge out there." He decided to go with. I rolled my eyes and went back to eating. "So what's really goin' on? With The Mandarin." Tony said. I swallowed my food, "Seriously, can we talk about this guy?" I asked. Rhodey motioned for us to lean in. "It's classified information, guys. Okay, there have been nine bombings." He said, telling us more than he should have. "Nine?" I asked with disbelief. The government didn't tell us about all of them. "The public only knows about three. Here's the thing, nobody can ID a device. There's no bomb casings." He said. "How?" I asked, "We don't know, whoever did this covered their tracks without going in." Rhodey answered. "You know I can help—we can help, just ask. I got a ton of new tech, I got a prehensile, I got a... I got a new bomb disposal." He said leaning back, "Catches explosions mid-air." I shook my head, "If we can get it to work this time." I said. Rhodey looked at Tony concerned, "When's the last time you got a good night's sleep?" Rhodey asked, with concern evident.

Tony shrugged as if it didn't matter. I looked up from my food and stared at Tony, "What? Einstein slept three hours a year. Look what he did." He said, as if justifying his actions. "That doesn't prove anything." I said, "It's not like you're building the atom bomb." Tony didn't seem to care. " People are concerned about you, Tony. I'm concerned about you. She's concerned about you." He said. "You're gonna come at me like that—the both of you?" Tony asked, accusingly. "No. No, look, I'm not trying to be a dic..." Rhodey stopped when a little girl and boy came up to our table. "…tator." He finished, hoping they didn't know what he was saying. "Do you mind signing my drawing?" The little girl, probably no more than ten, asked. The little boy was most likely her brother since they came from the same table. "If Richard doesn't mind." He said to the girl, nodding to Rhodey. Then he turned to him, "You alright with this, Dick?" He asked. I tried not to laugh at his clever response. "Fine with me." Rhodey said. He turned to me. I shrugged, "Don't keep your fans waiting." I said, turning to Buster. "Can I pet your dog?" The boy asked. "Sure, he won't bite." I said. Almost on cue, as soon as the boy started petting him, Buster started licking his face. The boy started laughing. I looked back up at the drawing; it was a drawing of Tony in his Iron Man suit, a pretty good drawing for a girl her age.

"What is your name?" He asked the girl. "Erin." She said quietly. He looked over at the boy, "I loved you in A Christmas Story, by the way." He said. He confused the boy in 10 words. Rhodey decided that it was ok to restart the conversation while Tony was signing her drawing. "Listen, the Pentagon is scared. After what happened in New York... aliens, come on. They need to look strong. Stopping the Mandarin is priority, but it's not..." He started to say, "It's superhero business, I get it." Tony cut in. Rhodey shook his head. "No, it's not, quite frankly. It's American business." He said. I nodded, "The pentagon wants to have _you_ take the guy down so it looks like the government played a big part in it or did it themselves." I said. Rhodey reluctantly nodded. "That's why I said I... got it." Tony said. Suddenly, while he was signing the drawing, he looked pale. He placed his hand on his face. "Are you okay?" Rhodey asked. "I broke the crayon." Tony said, his voice shaking. "Are you okay, Mr. Stark?" Erin asked. "Take it easy. Tony..." Rhodey said, not sure of what would happen. I gripped Buster's leash tightly, then threw some money down on the table to pay. The little boy got close to Tony, "How did you get out of the wormhole?" I heard him whisper. He quickly rose and walked off. "Wait a minute! Tony!" Rhodey said, running after him. I bolted after Rhodey, "What'd he say?!" Tony said, louder than he meant to.

I don't even think he wanted to say it out loud. "Tony!" Rhodey yelled again. He stopped dead in his tracks and I bumped up against him. He stumbled out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. "Sorry. Have to check on the suit... make sure... okay." Tony said when he got outside. He stepped into his suit. Everybody was staring. "Check the heart, check the... check the... is it the brain?" We heard Tony ask JARVIS. Rhodey and I were standing over him, but he didn't notice. "No sign of cardiac anomaly or unusual brain activity." JARVIS said, on speaker on purpose. JARVIS wanted us to hear it. "Okay, so I was poisoned?" Tony asked. "My diagnosis is that you've experienced a severe anxiety attack." JARVIS said. "Me?" Tony asked. Rhodey knocked on the Iron Man suit's head, people had gathered around us watching Tony have a breakdown. " Come on, man. This isn't a good look, open up." He said. "Sorry, I gotta split." Tony said, flying off. I turned to Rhodey, "Can you give me a lift?" I asked. He nodded, "Did somebody pay for lunch?" He asked. I nodded, "I did." I said. "Then let's get out of here before the press arrives." He said, dragging me off the sidewalk and to his car.

I climbed in the passenger seat and Buster sat in front of me, at my feet. As soon as we pulled out of the parking lot, I started to ask him about the reason I needed to get him alone. "Did you find the—the…" I started, not knowing how to say it. He could get fired if he got caught, but he was doing it for me. "Yes I did get you the files." He said, "But I don't think it's what you wanted it to be. The files didn't have as much. As we were at a stoplight he pulled them out of his bag and handed them to me. "I've done everything I can except put you in the witness protection program." He said, "And at this point, that might by your best bet." I shook my head, "Rhodey I can't do that. Even if I did they would most likely find me." I said. He nodded, "They do have a lot of intel." It scared me that he agreed with me. "So does this tell me where they are?" I asked, skimming the packet. "No, but it labels all of their locations, where they were last spotted, where they are predicted to head next, and who's with them. Don Rio and your Father are out of the game." He said. I nodded, "Thanks." I said. I couldn't wait to get back to Stark Industries; I needed to talk to Happy about security measures.

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**You know what, I'm going to put these 4 up and do the rest later.**


	5. Chapter 4

**I will try and get back on track, since I am now tracked out. The only good thing about my county's school system is that it has year-round. But I am going to Disney in a week. So I'm going to try and post all the chapters now. I was up to like chapter 20 or something, but then I got writer's block. Then my Grandma died. My life sucks right now, but I will try and finish this for not just you guys, but because I want to write down all my Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier stuff down. I changed my mind about her being in Captain America, because I liked it so much.**

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Chapter 4: Aldrich Killian returns

Later, after Rhodey dropped me off, I had to put my security badge on. Happy kind of went overboard with protecting the place, but it was extremely good. Everybody had to wear a badge. As soon as I walked in the front door I saw Happy pointing at his badge every time he saw an employee in the lobby. He was walking through the lobby heading over to where Pepper's office was. I ran to catch up with him, "Happy!" I yelled, running after him, dodging employees. "Badge... badge... badge. Badge, guys. I put a memo in the toilet, come on." He said. I grabbed onto Happy's arm. "Yes, everybody knows you put memos on the toilets, they're even in the women's bathroom." I said. "Well I had to." Happy said. Then he brightened up, "Hey! You're wearing your badge." He said. "I know, you yelling at me over the phone 3 times really paid off!" I said with mock enthusiasm. "Now I need to talk to you." I said, "Can you wait just a moment—I need to ask Pepper something?" I nodded and followed him over to where Pepper was. "Tony has got them in his basement, they're wearing party hats. This is an asset that we can put to use." Happy said, talking about all the robots and Dummy. They were in Tony's basement though. "Uh-huh. So, you're suggesting that I replace the entire janitorial staff with robots?" Pepper asked.

"What I'm saying is that the human element of Human Resources is our biggest point of vulnerability. We should start phasing it out immediately." Happy said. I looked at him confused, "What!?" Pepper asked, thinking she didn't hear him right. "Excuse me, Bambi." Happy said to another employee as she walked by. "Did you just say that?" She asked. She looked at me, "Did he really just say that?" She asked. I nodded, "Unfortunately." I muttered. I turned to see Happy point at his badge, "Security." He said. "Happy?" She said, trying to get his attention. "Yes." Happy said. "Okay, I am thrilled that you're now the Head of Security, okay? It is the perfect position for you." Pepper said. "Thank you." Happy said, grinning. "However..." She started again. He didn't listen to her. "I do appreciate it." Happy said. "Since you've taken the post..." Pepper started again. "You don't have to thank me." Happy said. "We've had a rise in staff complaints of three hundred percent." Pepper said. I nodded, "Everyone's complaining about your security protocols." I said. "Thank you." Happy said. Pepper and I were confused. "That's not a compliment." I said, looking at him funny. "That's not a compli...? It is a compliment! Clearly somebody's trying to hide something." Happy said. He was acting like we were the crazy ones. "I..." Pepper started to say, then her assistant came to talk to her. I never really talked to her assistant so I don't know her name; I also didn't look at her badge because I was worried about something else.

"Excuse me." The woman said. "Yes?" Pepper asked. "Miss Potts, your four o'clock is here." She said. "Thank you." Pepper responded. "Did you clear this four o'clock with me?" Happy asked, accusingly. "Happy, we'll talk about this later. But right now I have to go deal with this very annoying thing." Pepper said. "How so?" Happy asked. "I used to work with him, and he used to ask me out all the time. So it's a little awkward." Pepper responded, stepping aside. He opened the office glass door and the three of us, and Buster, entered. "I don't like the sound of that." Happy said. There he was, Aldrich Killian, though I didn't know who he was yet. Pepper looked totally and completely shocked at the sight of him. "Pepper." He said, smiling. "Killian?" She asked, still completely shocked. Happy and I exchanged a glance, this wasn't going the way we thought it was going to. "You look great. You look really great." He said, trying to be friendly. "God, you look... you look great. I... I... I can't... What on earth have you been doing?" She asked, trying not to seem flustered. She was really, really flustered. I couldn't really tell why, but I was 12 back then. It must have been a woman thing. "Nothing fancy, just five years in the hands of physical therapists. And please, call me Aldrich." He said.

Now he was trying to be friendly with her, but she was too busy gawking at him to realize that. "Uh... you were supposed to be issued a security badge." Happy said, breaking the awkward silence. "Happy, it's okay." Pepper said, turning back to us. She was looking at us like, 'Get out of my office'. I noticed that before Happy did and nudged him towards the door. "Yes?" He said, not taking the hint yet. "We're good." Pepper said. She still wanted us to leave. "You sure?" Happy asked, not trusting Aldrich. "Yes. Stand down." Pepper said, nodding us towards the door. I tugged on Happy's arm halfheartedly, if I wanted to I could have dragged him out of there. "Okay. I'm gonna linger, right here." He said, taking _my_ hint. "Thank you." Pepper said. "Okay." Happy said, looking at Aldrich warily. He stepped out of her office behind me and closed the door. As we left the room I heard Pepper say, "It's very nice to see you, Killian." As soon as Happy and I were out of the room I turned to him. "Happy, I really need to talk to you." I said. "Ok, ok, I can tell you really mean this." He said, "What do you need?" I took a deep breath before I started talking. "Look, we don't know the whereabouts of my family. But the last and next predicted destination is around here, I want to know that security is top notch." I said.

He nodded, "Ok, it is I promise. I'll even have people go through metal detectors at the front door if you want me too. Employees get a separate entrance; you, me, Tony, and Pepper get a separate entrance." He said. I nodded furiously, even though I knew Pepper wasn't going to want any more security measures. I needed them to feel safe, for at least the time being. Happy and I went to the waiting area outside Pepper's office; we saw the guy that came in with Aldrich. "Hey, guy." Happy yelled, drawing his attention. Happy pointed to his security badge and the guy picked up his badge from the table next to him and held it up to show me and Happy. I nodded and Happy looked at it skeptically. "Merry Christmas." The guy said to a man that walked past him. "Look, I'm going to Skype Tony." He said, "I want you to listen in on those two and keep an eye on him." He said. I nodded and handed him a comm. As soon as I made sure he put it in I walked over to Pepper's office. I tapped a bug against the glass, letting me hear through the glass and put the comm in my ear. Then I went and sat in the middle of the waiting area, close enough for me to see and hear that guy. "After years dodging the President's ban on 'immoral biotech research', my think tank now has a little something in the pipeline. It's an idea we like to call Extremis. I'm gonna turn your lights down." Aldrich said, I watched them from my chair, but whenever he wasn't looking I snuck a look back at the dude.

He dimmed the lights and had 3 metal balls in his hand. "Regard the human brain." He said, rolling the three balls on her table. As soon as they stop rolling it projected a 3D image. "Uh... wait. Hold on, hold on. That's... that's the universe, my bad. But if I do that..." He started to say, he pressed a button on a remote from his pocket. Then the 3D projection showed, what I recognized as the inside of the brain. I couldn't help but look at it in awe. "That's the brain. Strangely mimetic though, wouldn't you say?" He asked. Pepper had the same look on her face that I did. "Wow, that's amazing!" She said. "Thanks, it's mine." He said. This guy would not stop smiling. "What?" Pepper asked. "This... you're inside my head. It's a..." Aldrich started, trying to figure out how to explain it in easy terms. I took the brief moment he paused to sneak a glance back at the guy, he was still reading that magazine. He tapped behind his ear, referring to something inside his head. "It's a live feed. Come on up, I'll prove it to you." He said. He rose and stood on the coffee table. "Come on." He said, helping Pepper up next to him. He wrapped his arm around Pepper. "Now, pinch my arm." He said. He held out his arm but she wouldn't do it. "I can take it. Pinch me." He said again. As soon as she did something from the image lit up.

"What is that?" She asked, looking shocked. "It's the primary somatosensory cortex. It's the brain's pain center. But this is what I wanted to show you." He said. He turned Pepper around and I couldn't see their faces. I snuck a glance back at the guy, he kept saying "Merry Christmas." to people. Then I looked back at them. "Now, Extremis harnesses our bioelectrical potential And it goes...here. This is essentially an empty slot, and what this tells us is that our mind, our entire DNA in fact, is destined to be upgraded." He said, making it look bigger. "Wow." Pepper said again. I didn't get to hear much more of it, I heard Happy's tablet ring and I bolted over to where he was. "Hello?" Happy said, holding it up too high. "Is this forehead of Security?" Tony asked. "What? You know, look, I got a real job. What do you want? I'm working, I got something going on here." He said. It echoed through my comm. I held my hand out in front of him, and he gave me the comm. "What? Harassing interns?" Tony asked. Happy didn't even look offended. "Let me tell you something, you know what happened when I told people I was Iron Man's body guard? They would laugh in my face." He said. I nodded, seeing that happen in my head. "You should have said you were his trainer or something like that." I said as Tony laughed. I leaned over Happy's shoulder and waved. "Hey Alex." He said, "I see Rhodey brought you home." I nodded.

"I had to leave while I still had a shred of dignity. Now I got a real job, I'm watching Pepper." Happy said, continuing his earlier rant. "What's going on? Fill me in." He said, showing interest for once. "For real?" Happy asked. "Yeah." Tony responded. "Alright, so she's meeting up with this scientist. Rich guy, handsome." Happy answered. "Right." Tony said, wanting him to hurry it up with the explanation. "I couldn't make his face at first, right? You know I'm good with faces." Happy said. "Oh, yeah, yeah. You're the best." Tony said sarcastically. "Yeah. Well, so I run his credentials, I make him Aldrich Killian. We actually met the guy back in... where were we in '99? The science conference?" He asked. I couldn't be of any help because I didn't know them yet; I wasn't even born yet. "Um...Switzerland." Tony said after thinking for a minute. "Right, right, exactly." Happy said. "Killian? No, I don't remember that guy." Tony said. "Of course you don't. He's not a blond with a big rack. At first it was fine, they were talking business, but now it's like getting weird. He's showing her a big brain." He said. I facepalmed at that moment; Tony wasn't going to understand what he meant. "His what?" Tony asked, growing concerned for his girlfriend. "Big brain, and she likes it. Here, let me show you. Hold on. See?" He asked.

He held up his tablet and pointed it towards Pepper's office. I facepalmed again when I realized he couldn't turn the camera around. "Look at what? You watching them? Flip the screen and then we can get started." Tony said. "I'm not a tech genius like you. Just...just trust me, get down here." Happy said. "Flip the screen, then I can see what they're doing. Alex, help him out with this." He said, trying to see what was going on. I tried to take the tablet from Happy and he jerked away. He didn't want to get help from a 12 year old girl. "I can't! I don't know how to flip the screen! Don't talk to me like that anymore. You're not my boss." Happy said. I tried to take the tablet from him again, "No." He said, pulling away. "Happy, just give me the tablet." I said. "No." He said again. "Happy." I warned. He still jerked away, and almost stood up out of his chair. A lot of people were starting to stare at us. "Happy—just give it!" I said, reaching for it. Buster jumped up and started barking like crazy, only adding to the spectacle. He jumped out of his chair, "Happy just give me the tablet." I snapped. "Alright, I don't work for you. Now I don't trust this guy. He's got another guy with him, he's shifty." Happy said, after I gave up. We both sat back down. "Relax." Tony said, trying to keep us from getting in another fight. "Seriously?" Happy said, surprised that Tony wasn't already down there with an armada of Iron Man suits and government agents patting everyone down. I would seriously be ok with that if it kept my uncle away from me.

"I'm just asking you to secure the perimeter. Tell him to go out for a drink or something?" Tony said, trying to get back to whatever he was doing. Clearly he didn't want to deal with us anymore. "You know what?" Happy said, about to dish it out on Tony, "You should take more of an interest in what's going on here. This woman... this woman's the best thing that ever happened to you, and you...you're just ignoring her." I couldn't help but agree. In the little time we had been there, I had spent most of it with Tony in his lab. He didn't seem like a caring boyfriend, but then again, he was Tony Stark. "A giant brain?" Tony repeated, thinking the two of us had lost it. "Yeah, there's a giant brain, there's a shifty character. I'm gonna follow this guy. I'm gonna run his plates and if it gets rough, so be it." He said. He really didn't care if it got him hurt to keep us safe. He was actually a pretty cool guy until you made him mad, which wasn't too hard. "I miss you, Happy." Tony said sarcastically. "Yeah, I miss you too. But the way it used to be. Now you're off with the 'superfriends', I don't know what's going on with you anymore. The world's getting weird..." Happy said. "Hey, I... I'd hate to cut you off. Do you have your Taser on you?" He asked. "Why?" Happy asked, not answering his question.

"I think there's a gal in HR who's trying to steal some printer ink, you should probably go over there and zap her." Tony lied, trying to get us off his back. He put the table in his wine fridge and closed the door. The screen on his side of the started getting foggy. "Yeah, nice." Happy said, as we were still online. I rolled my eyes, and he turned it off. "I'm going to tune back into Pepper and Bill Nye." I said. Happy snickered. I placed the comm back in my ear and adjusted it so I could hear it all clearly. "Imagine if you could hack into the hard drive of any living organism and recode its DNA." He said. "It would be incredible." She said. "Mm." He said, sounding pleased that she agreed with him. "Unfortunately, to my ears it also sounds highly weaponizable. As in enhanced soldiers, private armies, and Tony is not..." She started to say. "Tony. Tony. You know, I invited Tony to join AIM thirteen years ago, he turned me down. But something tells me now there is a new genius on the throne who doesn't have to answer to Tony anymore, and who has slightly less of an ego." He said, trying to change her mind. "It's gonna be a no, Aldrich. As much as I'd like to help you." She said, trying not to hurt his feelings. I bolted over to her office window and peeled off the bug when they weren't looking. The guy was still reading his magazine. He must have read it at least 3 times. As he and Pepper were leaving the building, Happy and I followed them. Buster was following us closely, even though I wasn't holding his leash.

"Well, I can't say that I'm not disappointed. But then as my father used to say, 'Failure is the fog through which we glimpse triumph.'" I heard him say. "That's very deep." Pepper said. "Mm." He said. "And I have no idea what it means." She admitted, shaking her head. "Well, me neither. He was kind of an idiot, my old man." He said. Pepper laughed, "I'm sure I'll see you again, Pepper." He said. He kissed her on the cheek and she watched him as he walked off. Then when Happy and I walk over, she started to look flustered. "Happy... Alex…" She said. "The car is ready, if you're ready to go." He said. She glanced over at Aldrich as he walked over towards his car. "Yes. I just um... God, I forgot my other thing, so I'm just gonna..." She just walked back in the building, under the guise of going to get something, but most likely to collect herself. Happy glanced over to Aldrich's car and as he drove away, Happy took a photo of the license plate. "Well that was a few more words than I thought she was going to say." I said. Happy nodded, "Why don't you get in the car?" He asked, "Can you send me the photo?" I asked. He nodded, "I'll try." He said, "Do you just want me to do it?" I asked. "No!" He said again, walking away. I rolled my eyes. I went and sat in the car, waiting for Pepper to return. When she finally got back in the car we both sat in awkward silence. I was petting Buster, and the radio was playing 'Let it snow' softly. "Tony doesn't have to know about that." Pepper said in a rushed tone. I turned to look at her, "Even I'm not that cruel." I said with a raised eyebrow. "Do you honestly think I'd tell Tony what just happened?" I asked. She shook her head. "That's good, Pepper." I said seriously, like my 'Father' in a meeting. "Now can we go watch How the Grinch stole Christmas?"

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**Please review.**


	6. Chapter 5

**I think they get better up until maybe 18 or so. At that point was when things started to go downhill in my life. I've had these for like 6 months, but I was holding onto them thinking I could finish the whole story before I posted it. Hey, I even thought I'd have it done before Christmas. You guys will probably get the first like 20 chapters, but don't expect me to finish this anytime soon.**

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Chapter 5: Home and surveillance duty

When Pepper and I got back to one of Tony's houses, I was out of the car and running up the drive before Pepper could register that it was a giant stuffed bunny in front of her. To be fair at first I thought it was supposed to be a dog. What kind of bunny has ears flat against its head? She just walked up the drive after me. "I'm sorry I'm late. I was... What the...? What is that?!" She asked. She was just as flustered as I was to see Tony in his Iron Man suit on the couch. I had been gawking before she walked in. "I just wanted to watch that stupid Christmas special, but on the couch—is disaster number 4—" Pepper cut me off without meaning to. She was in shock from seeing that. "You're wearing this in the house now? What is that, like Mark 15?" She asked. He looked down at the # 42 brand on the side of the suit. "Uh...yeah. Something like that. You know everybody needs a hobby." He said, trying not to let her find out he hadn't slept more than ½ an hour a night in almost a month. "Oh, and you have to wear your hobby in the living room?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. He rose and walked over to her. "Just breakin' it in. You know, it's always a little pinchy in the gooey bag at first, so." He said. Pepper laughed and I wanted to leave the room as quickly as I could.

"Oh hey, did you see your Christmas present?" He asked. That was the only thing that stopped me from backing away. "Yes, I did. I... I don't know how I could have missed that Christmas present. Is it gonna fit through the door?" She asked. It surely didn't look like it was going to fit through the door. It was at least 4 times as tall and twice as wide as the door. "Well actually, uh... it's a good question. I got a team of guys comin' tomorrow, they're gonna blow out that wall." He said. "Okay." Pepper said. "So, uh...tense? Good day?" Tony started. Then my phone buzzed. "What was that?" Pepper asked. "Nothing." I said, "I didn't hear anything." When she turned back to Tony I looked down at my iPhone, I saw that it was a text from Happy. "SKYPE ME ON YOUR LAPTOP." It said. "K, why are you in caps?" I sent him. "Sorry, now I need you to Skype me." He sent me. "Um… can I go up to my room now?" I asked. Pepper nodded, "Sure…" Then she turned to look back at Tony, "We'll be in the lab if you need us." I nodded and ran up the stairs and into my room. I threw my laptop out of my backpack and onto the desk in my room. As soon as my screen was open I typed my password and opened Skype. Happy was waiting for me to turn it on. His screen name STARKINDUSTRIES#1MAN, popped up on my screen. 'STARKINDUSTRIES#1MAN is requesting to Skype with TARDISISAWESOME'.

Don't judge me, it was that or something about my dog. "Oh thank god, you answered." He said, letting out a breath. "Are you alright?" I asked. "The guy, with what's his face… Aldrich Killian. You saw him too?" He asked. "Yeah, of course I did, you had me spy on him." I said. "Well, I ran the license plate." Happy said, leaning in so close I knew he was on his tablet. "What's wrong with it?" I asked. "It's not Killian's car, it's some guy named Eric Savin's car… or it used to be." He said. "What about it?" I asked, "Maybe he borrowed the car from that dude." I didn't think much of it until Happy sent me an e-mail. I held up a 'One moment' sign. I looked at the e-mail and I had to go to a webpage. It was a S.H.I.E.L.D file of Eric Savin. "Happy…" I said. He didn't say anything; he just sat there stoically, like it was absolutely nothing. He hacked into a government facility; remember, this was the man who couldn't flip the stupid screen on his tablet. "How did you get this file?" I asked shocked that actually did it. He held up my flash drive, "I used your program and hacked the server." He said sheepishly. "And you couldn't flip the ding dang screen on your tablet?" I asked, rolling my eyes. "Just look at the file." He snapped. It had a picture of the guy we saw in the lobby. I looked back up at Happy, "It's the guy that was sitting in the lobby." I said. "Read the article." He said, "Can you fax me a printed copy?" I asked. He nodded and it took a moment and some cussing for him to figure out what to do. I skimmed it and I found the words:

**Army**, **Iraq**, **Disappearance**, **Presumed dead**, **Found 6 months later**, **Disabled**, **Suicide**.

"This guy should be dead." I said, looking up at the screen again. Happy nodded reluctantly. "Now I know why you looked like you saw a ghost… we might as well have." I said. "Look, I ran the plates, I can track the car. Tomorrow, while Pepper's working you and me, we're doing some CSI work." He said. I nodded, "It feels good to be back in the game." I said. Happy looked concerned for a moment. I held my hand up, "I'm ok. I'm not crazy. But I've had to do stuff like this before." I said, trying to explain it to him. "Ok, so how do I explain this to Pepper and Tony?" I asked. He waved his hand, "Just tell them I'm your bodyguard tomorrow because of your family issues." He said. I nodded, even though it was usually a pain in the ass, it came in handy when you didn't want to do something. That was actually how I got out of school to play laser tag with Tony one day. Don't judge me, school sucked for me. "Happy, what do you know about S.H.I.E.L.D?" I asked. "That The Avengers were run by that, that Red-haired chick, 'Natalie Rushman' from before you came works there, and that you apparently hate it enough to hack it." He said. "I'll explain that tomorrow." I said, "I need to go now." He nodded. As soon as he hung up, I went to work on my thesis. Or I tried to work on my thesis. I wanted to get it over with so I could focus on this new mystery, and The Mandarin threat.

I was tracing everything I could find about Aldrich Killian and Eric Savin. I stayed up until past midnight, in the living room with a cup of coffee. I was close to falling asleep, I didn't want to sleep until I got enough information. Then I kept on switching back to my thesis. I was almost done with it, and I was seriously thinking of having it published. I didn't tell Tony the truth when I told him it was about what happened; at least I didn't tell him the whole truth. It was about the scientific anomaly which gave them the ability to send us to their parallel copy universe, which then disappeared as soon as we left it. Then I went on to explain what happened in the cover story that Darcy, Beth, and I had worked on. It was basically the same, but I left out everything about S.H.I.E.L.D and I said it was a 'Secret organization that ran in the shadows and waited for the right moment to strike and help or hurt those around them' as I quote, and I left it at that. That was basically what S.H.I.E.L.D was, but I didn't mention any of them by name, I made up names. Fury became Director Norris Forth. Agent Hill became Agent Mary Hand. Agent Sitwell became Agent John Sampson. Agent Coulson became, The one we Avenged. That was all I called Coulson, I wasn't going to change his name, I wasn't going to give him a fake story. I just said, 'Some wonder why _we_ fought back; we did it to Avenge a man who was killed saving his team'. I called Coulson, 'The one man who showed enough kindness to protect those who didn't want his protection'.

Around that time Pepper came down from her and Tony's room. I quickly minimized that windows, then I started typing on my thesis again. I about finished it. "Hey Pepper, what's up?" I asked. I didn't really look at her until she sat down beside me. I looked over at her and saw her shaking. "Pepper?" I asked, "What happened?" She hugged her knees to her chest and said, "Tony's suit attacked me." I looked at her wide eyed. "That was what we were trying to fix." I said, "It wouldn't come at the right time or in the right order, and now it went rouge." She nodded, "You've got that right." She said. "Now what are you working on?" She asked. "My thesis… ok, it's more of a memoir, less of a thesis. The first half is a thesis. The rest is just my watered down cover story of what happened." I said, sighing. I scrolled through it to show her some of what I had been working on. I was so thankful that she didn't see the two minimized screens. "Alex, why don't you just go to bed?" She asked, "Happy said he's going to go through the new training drills with you tomorrow." I tried not to laugh. I obeyed her and went up to my room. I shut down my computer and curled up with Buster. I thought that this was going to be the weirdest Christmas vacation I had ever had, and I didn't even know what was coming up.

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**Please review this.**


	7. Chapter 6

**This one is going to be not as good, because I didn't really know how to write it. I also am going to explain Alex's actions in this. She's pretty scared during this, and has no idea what's going on. She doesn't want a repeat of New York, and they actually think it's just a drug scam or something. Also please tell me if I misspelled LA (The word not the initials)**

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Chapter 6: Terrible accident

I'm going to skip the boring details about what happened when Happy and I were tailing them. We were at the Chinese theater in Los Angeles. It was around 8 or 9 pm. Happy and I were sitting in a café across the street from the theater. We were sitting there because Savin had been there earlier; he was pacing in front of the theater. Happy was reading a newspaper and I was brushing Buster. We looked like somewhat normal people out in public with their dog. "He's moving towards somebody." I said. "Can you see the person?" Happy asked, "No, whoever it is must be sitting down." I said. I looked over my shoulder, trying to find the person. "Then let's get closer." Happy said, dropping his newspaper and standing up. He handed out waitress the money and we walked across the street. We stood beside a sunglasses cart. There was a man sitting on a bench with dog tags in his hand. Savin walked up with him with a briefcase in hand. "Can you regulate?" He asked the man. "Yes, I can regulate." The man responded. "Are you sure about that?" Savin asked again. "Yes." The man said again, wanting whatever was in that briefcase. "Regulate what?" I whispered to Happy. He shook his head, "It must be some kind of drug." Happy said, watching them with interest. He had on a pair of sunglasses and looked over the top of them. I was still behind the cart. Savin handed the man the briefcase. "It's a decent batch. Don't say I never did nothin' for you." He said. "Thank you... I mean for understanding." The man said.

Savin walked off towards the front of the theater. Happy turned to me quickly, "Stay here and listen to whatever I tell you. Even if you don't want to do it, I need you to do everything I'm about to tell you." He said. I nodded, "Yes Happy." I said. "Go back behind that hotdog cart. I'll meet you there in a moment." He said. I nodded and walked over there with Buster. Then Happy walked over to that guy, who was starting to leave. There weren't too many people there, but the man was focusing on the ground. Happy took the opportunity and bumped into him; knocking the both of them to the ground and the briefcase popped open when it hit the pavement. The man looked nervous and scrambled with what was on the ground. "I'm sorry, buddy." Happy said, and he started helping the guy put it back into the briefcase. Even I noticed that he was glowing a little bit red. Happy grabbed one of the devices from the briefcase without the guy knowing. They both stood up and walked in opposite directions. The guy was heading to leave, and Happy was coming over to me. Then Savin came back. He bumped into Happy. "What are you doin', buddy? You out by yourself? A little date night?" He said, gesturing to me behind the hotdog cart. I froze in my spot; he knew we were spying on him. Buster growled and it took all my strength to keep him from charging Savin. "Watching your favorite chick flick maybe?" He teased.

Happy's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, a little movie called 'The Party's Over', starring you and your junkie girlfriend, and here's the ticket." He said. Once again; I facepalmed at his bluntness. Happy showed him what he took from the briefcase. "No kidding? That doesn't belong to you." Savin said. Savin went to take the object from Happy, but Happy punched him in the face. His face started to glow red and heal. Then Savin grabbed hold of Happy and threw him aside. I remained standing there frozen in my spot once again, "Run!" Happy yelled, as Savin was only concerned with him. I did as he asked and took off down the sidewalk dragging Buster behind me. I was close to pushing people out of my way, and I actually did a couple of times. They seemed to understand to get out of my way and let me run. Buster kept stopping or trying to drag me back. He didn't want to leave Happy there, and didn't seem to understand I was only doing what Happy told me to. I didn't get too far before I had to turn around. At some point Buster pulled me so hard, as we were going through a crowd, that I dropped the leash. "Buster, no!" I yelled. He took off back to the theater, and I ran after him. People were making way for the furry bullet that was the German shepherd dragging the leash behind him. I ran as fast as I could, trying to catch up with him before he got back there, but I kept thinking maybe it wasn't as bad as Happy thought it was going to be.

Eventually I heard, saw, and felt the explosion. I swear that should have broken my eardrums, and I fell to the ground. I screamed bloody murder. I jumped to my feet and struggled to start running again. People were screaming and crying and trying not to throw up. I got to the edge of the crime scene and the cops tried to stop me from getting past the crowd control lines. "Are you insane?" One of the cops asked. "I've got to get in there!" I yelled, trying to jump the thing. The cop pushed me back, and people made a hole. "Or are you just stupid." The cop asked as I was getting off the ground. "Ok you son of a bitch, you leave me alone or you're gonna get your uptight ass kicked." I said. The cop was about to cuss me out, but a female cop came over. "Why do you need to get through?" She asked. "I'm Alexandra Harbor." I said, using my name to get me in there. "The girl from New York." She said. "Yes, I'm here with Tony Stark; and I was _here_, I mean here, here with one of his Head of Security, Harold Hogan." I tried to explain. I didn't know how to explain it to somebody that wasn't Tony or Pepper; they understood whatever I meant. This woman didn't know me, so they didn't understand what I was going through, or the panic running through my mind.

Then I saw him on a gurney, "HAPPY!" I yelled, trying to jump the barricade thing again. She let me through the line and we ran over to where he was. He was out cold, but he was alive. "Is he going to be ok?" I asked, "We're fairly sure he is. Right now he's stable, but with these burns and injuries we need to take him to the hospital as quickly as we can." The man said, in a rush. "Did you guys by any chance see a German Shep—" I didn't even get the chance to finish. "You mean this guy?" A fireman asked, holding an unconscious brown and black lump. "Oh my god." I said, whispering. His fur was burnt and covered in ash, but he was in one piece. "When we found him, he was guarding this guy." The fireman said, "He's ok, surprisingly no serious burns, no burns at all except for the one on his back leg. He must have gotten there after the actual explosion and just got burnt by some fire." I nodded, trying hard to stay calm. "Can I go with you guys?" I asked. The paramedics nodded. I sat in the back of the ambulance with Happy and the fireman handed me Buster. I patted his head, "You did a brave thing." I said, "Braver than I was… but next time when somebody tells us that we need to run, why can't we just run?" I asked. He opened his eyes and thumped his tail. "Good dog." I said, "Good boy." I couldn't wait to get to the hospital, then I could call Tony.

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	8. Chapter 7

**I suck when it comes to chapter titles. If you don't understand Alex's actions (why she didn't tell Tony about the briefcase) look back at the author's note at the top of the previous chapter.**

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Chapter 7: Threaten the enemy

"True story about fortune cookies. They look Chinese, they sound Chinese, but they're actually an American invention. Which is why they're hollow, full of lies, and leave a bad taste in the mouth. My disciples just destroyed another cheap American knock-off, The Chinese Theater. Mr. President, I know this must be getting frustrating, but this season of terror is drawing to a close. And don't worry, the big one is coming; your graduation." The Mandarin said on TV. Tony, Buster, and I were watching it in Happy's hospital room. "So it didn't have anything to do with Savin or the other dude." I said to myself. Then it went back to its program, 'Downtown Abbey'. "Hi." Tony said to his nurse. "Oh." She said. "Uh...mind leaving that on?" Tony said, pointing at the TV. "Sure." She said, not arguing with Tony Stark. He rose from his seat and helped me up. "Sunday night's PBS 'Downtown Abbey'. That's his show, he thinks it's elegant." Tony told her. He paused for a moment, thinking of something to say. "One more thing... make sure everyone wears their badges. He's a stickler for that sort of thing, plus my guys won't let anyone in without them." He said. That wasn't entirely true, they would let Tony, Pepper, Buster, and I in there without badges; but that was it. We left the room at that point and went out the front door. That was a pretty big mistake.

There were a whole lot or reporters waiting for us surrounding his car. "We're awaiting the arrival of Tony Stark. We're hoping he'll give us the reaction... his reaction to the latest attack." One of them said into a camera. All the reporters and even just regular people swarmed around us when we walked out the front door. "Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark! Our sources are telling us that this is another Mandarin attack. Anything else you can tell us?" A different reporter asked. We ignored the questions being thrown at us and continued towards the car. I heard many questions being thrown at me, about my family, about The Mandarin, and about Buster's heroics. Somebody even tried to rip Buster's leash from me. I nearly broke that guy's arm. "Hey, Mr. Stark! When is somebody gonna kill this guy? Just sayin'." A tabloid reporter said. Tony narrowed his eyes and turned to the guy. "Is that what you want? Here's a little Holiday greeting I've been wanting to send to the Mandarin. I just didn't know how to phrase it until now. My name is Tony Stark and I'm not afraid of you. I know you're a coward, so I've decided that you just died, pal. I'm gonna come get the body. There's no politics here; it's just good old-fashioned revenge. There's no Pentagon; it's just you and me. And on the off-chance you're a man, here's my home address: 10880, Malibu Point, 90265. I'll leave the door unlocked." Tony said. The reporters looked so shocked and scared. "That's what you wanted, right?" He asked the reporter.

I pushed Buster in front of me and jumped over the hood to climb in my door. Tony grabbed the reporter' cellphone and threw it aside. "Bill me." Tony said. I locked my door and buckled my seatbelt. He got in the car and then drove off. I didn't know what to say, so we just sat there in silence as Tony drove and I clutched onto Buster. Tony looked over at me, seeing my fear. "It's going to be ok." He said. I looked at him like he was insane, which he might have been. "You just threatened a terrorist at 5:30 in the morning." I said, "Last night, was just the latest of The Mandarin attacks, the pentagon can't hide this one." He nodded. "You told them exactly where we were, they can kill us easier now." I said. "I know, Alex, I know." He said. "Then why did you do it?" I asked. "I don't know. I just did, ok?" He snapped. I shook my head, "Tony this is out of line." I said, "This isn't safe. WE aren't safe anymore; not just you." I said. He didn't seem to be listening to me. "What happens when Pepper finds out—what happens when The Mandarin finds out?" I asked. "What about Rhodey, or the pentagon?" I asked. "I don't know!" He snapped, slamming his hands down on the steering wheel. "Tony I'm scared." I said. He turned to me, "This is about New York, isn't it?" He asked. I nodded, "Tony, I've been terrified since New York." I said. He nodded, "So have I." He said, "So have I." I just left it at that.

Later in Tony's lab

"I've compiled a Mandarin database for you, sir. Drawn from S.H.I.E.L.D, F.B.I, and C.I.A intercepts. Initiating virtual crime scene reconstruction." JARVIS said. Tony and I started looking through all the data gathered. "Okay, what do we got here?" Tony asked. "His name is an ancient Chinese war mantle, meaning 'Adviser to the King'. South American insurgency tactics, talks like a Baptist preacher. There's lots of pageantry going on here… lots of theater." I said. Tony didn't say anything about the irony in that. Tony pushed the virtual information down to close, "Close." Tony said. Then Tony started walking around in the virtual crime scene reconstruction. It took a while for it to start building it all, as Tony was walking through it. "The heat from the blast was in excess of 3000 degrees Celsius. Any subjects within 12.5 yards were vaporized instantly." JARVIS said, I whimpered. Happy could have been vaporized, Buster could have been vaporized. If I had stayed, I could have been vaporized. "No bomb parts found in a three mile radius of the Chinese theater." Tony said. "No, sir." JARVIS said. I could have told him that. Before Tony got to the hospital, I was grilling a cop for information. "Talk to me, Happy." Tony said, bending down in front of the recreation. Happy was pointing at some dog tags and one of his hands was wrapped around Buster's collar. "When is a bomb not a bomb?" Tony asked. Tony picked up the virtual image of the dog tags to investigate them further.

"Any military victims?" I asked. "Not according to public records, ma'am." JARVIS said. "Bring up the thermogenic signatures again, factor in three thousand degrees." Tony said. "The oracle cloud has completed analysis. Accessing satellites and plotting the last twelve months of thermogenic occurrence now." JARVIS responded. "Take away everywhere that there's been a Mandarin attack." I said, before Tony could. "Nope." Tony said, looking through the information. One of the marked attacks was in Rose Hill, Tennessee. "That. You sure that's not one of his?" He said, pointing at it. "It predates any known Mandarin attack. The incident was the use of a bomb to assist a suicide." JARVIS said. "Bring it around." I said, jumping up to stand next to Tony. He nodded and we stared at the oddly familiar facts. "The heat signature is remarkably similar. Three thousand degrees Celsius." JARVIS said. We skimmed through the information. "That's two military guys. Ever been to Tennessee, JARVIS?" Tony asked. "Creating a flight plan for Tennessee." JARVIS said. As soon as Tony was about to take off for Tennessee, leaving me and Pepper there, the doorbell rang. "Are we still at 'ding-dong'? We're supposed to be on total security lock down. Come on, I threatened a terrorist. Who is that?" He asked. "There's only so much I can do, sir, when you give the world's press your home address." JARVIS said.

Plus, it wasn't JARVIS' fault. We walked upstairs and I kept going, heading to my room to pack. Tony put his Iron Man suit on. I packed everything I had on me, which wasn't as much as Tony and Pepper thought there was. I started packing my duffle bag. I took some of my clothes from my dresser and set it in my bag. "Tony's an idiot." I said to Buster. He wagged his tail. "Yeah, you saved a grown man's life, he threatened a terrorist and put us all at risk." He wagged his tail again. I finished up my packing and went out to the hallway. There was Pepper, dragging 2 bags from her and Tony's room. "Oh thank god." I said, "Somebody else agrees with me." I said. Pepper nodded. "We aren't taking any chances." Pepper responded, pissed at Tony. We were walking over to the stairs and we could hear some whispering. He turned around and as he walked into the living room, Pepper threw the 2 bags from the balcony we were standing on. "It's... with her." Tony said. "Tony, is somebody there?" She asked. He stepped out of his suit. "Yeah, it's Maya Hansen. Old botanist pal that I used to know, barely." He said, trying to play it down. As Pepper and I walked downstairs I put the comm in my ear.

Tony leaned closer to Maya and whispered, "Please don't tell me that there is a twelve year-old kid waiting in the car that I've never met." He looked like he was freaking out. "He's thirteen." She said without emotion. Tony looked shocked for a second. She rolled her eyes. "And no, I need your help." She said. I walked over towards them and peeled the bug off the wall, then I took my comm out and put it in my 'Spy Kit' which was made out of stuff I 'borrowed' from S.H.I.E.L.D when they weren't looking then took them off the radar. "What... what for? Why now?" He asked, trying not to pay attention to me. "Because I read the papers, and, frankly, I don't think you'll last the week." She said. "I'll be fine." Tony said. Pepper walked over to them. "I'm sorry. With Happy in the hospital, I didn't know we were expecting guests." Pepper said, trying hard not to be shallow. "We weren't." Tony tried to explain. "No, I..." Maya started to say. "And old girlfriends!" I piped in. Tony glared at me and mouthed 'Shut the fuck up'. "She's not really." Tony tried to explain to Pepper. "No, not really. It—it was just one night." Maya added. "Yep." He said, only making Pepper angry. "That's how you did it, isn't it? Yep." Pepper asked, glaring at him worse than he did with me. "It was a great night." Tony said. "Well, you know..." Pepper started to say. "Yeah." Maya said. "You have saved yourself a world of pain." Pepper said. She was obviously still mad at Tony. "I'm sure." Maya said. I tried hard not to laugh.

"What?" Tony asked. "Trust me." Pepper said. Then she turned to Tony, "We're going out of town." Pepper said, not leaving room for an answer. I nodded along. "Okay, we've been through this. Nope." Tony said, not taking her reasons. "Yep!" Pepper said, about to go over to her bags. "The man says no." Tony said, firm on his point. "Immediately and indefinitely!" Both Pepper and I said. As soon as we got home from the hospital, I was talking to Pepper about how I no longer felt safe, and she agreed with me. "Honey..." Tony started to whine. "Great idea. Let's go. I'll..." Maya said. She started to go help Pepper with her bags. "I'm sorry. That's a terrible idea. Please don't touch her bags." Tony said. "Tony, this is how normal people behave." I said. He sighed and turned to Pepper, "I can't protect you out there. I challenged..." Tony started again. Maya noticed the giant bunny in the corner. "Is... is that normal?" She asked, pointing at the odd sight. "Yes, this is normal!" Tony yelled. "Sadly, that... is very normal." Pepper said. "It's a big bunny, relax about it!" Tony snapped. "Calm down!" Pepper yelled. "I got this for you." Maya and I were standing there, slowly backing into the hallway. Neither of us wanted to be there and I'm pretty sure Pepper didn't want to be there. "I'm aware of that." Pepper said. "You still haven't even told me that you liked it!" Tony said which actually was true.

Maya and I exchanged a worried glance; we still needed to get as far away from this place as possible. "I don't like it!" Pepper yelled back. "I asked you three... You don't like it?!" He asked. They would not stop bickering and yelling. Maya and I were standing in the hallway, Maya had one of Pepper's bags, she had the other. I had my stuff, and Tony still wasn't packed. I was saying that because we needed to have our stuff and clear out at that exact moment. Do you want to know why? Maya noticed something on the TV. She grabbed my sleeve and tugged on it. She pointed towards the TV, which had helicopters heading straight towards the house. I was surprised nobody had called to say, "Get out now." or at least something along those lines. "Tony, we are leaving the house; that's not even up for discussion." Pepper said. "I said no." Tony said again, firmly. "Guys, can we um..." Maya said, trying to explain it simply. "What?" Tony asked accusingly. "Do we need to worry about that?" I asked, pointing at the helicopters. Then we saw something that made my blood go cold. A bomb dropped from the helicopter, and hit the house. We were thrown to the ground and everything exploded around us. Rubble was falling on us and I screamed. Tony threw the Iron Man suit on Pepper to protect her. Maya was unconscious on a piece of unstable flooring and I was struggling to get a grip, both on the ground and on my head. I was panicking severely and couldn't think straight. I wasn't doing too hot for a smart girl now was I? Pepper surged forward to save Tony from falling rubble. "I got you." Pepper said, removing the face mask. "I got you first." Tony said, kind of in a daze, "Like I said, we can't stay here."

Pepper nodded and I scrambled for grip again. As soon as I got grip, the helicopter started firing on us. "Move! I'm right behind!" Tony yelled, scrambling to his feet. I jumped to my feet and somehow got in front of Pepper. The floor in front of Tony collapsed; Pepper and I managed to get to the other side. The entire time I'm clutching onto Buster, who was basically dragging me towards the door. I was freaking out, and trying hard not to freeze up again. It reminded me so much of New York. In my head, it _was _New York. I kept on seeing the battle zone in my head. That was one of the brief moments where I didn't. "Get them, I'm gonna find a way around." Tony yelled, talking about me and Maya. Pepper didn't do anything. "Stop stopping! Get them, get outside! Go!" He yelled. Pepper somehow managed to get me and Maya and used the Iron Man suit to get us out the front door. The house was getting worse and worse by the second. "Oh my God. Tony!" Pepper screamed. "Sir, Miss Potts is clear of the structure." JARVIS said, echoing through the suit. The Iron Man suit came off of Pepper and flew back into the house. We couldn't see much else of what happened. Then one of the helicopters crashed into the house. The other helicopter continued to shoot at the house until what was left of it fell into the ocean, with Tony still inside of it. Pepper ran to the edge of the cliff and searched for Tony in the water. "Tony!" Pepper yelled. Maya and I slowly got to our feet. We were no longer safe.

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	9. Chapter 8

**This chapter happens almost directly after the last one, but maybe around 24 hours later.**

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Chapter 8: Where to go

The day after it happened, Pepper came up with a bit of a compromise with me. I wanted to stay with her, but go somewhere safe and look for Tony. She wanted me to leave and be safe back in New York with my friends. So now I'm going back to New York. That's her compromise. She put me on the first plane back to New York. Somehow, and I don't even want to know how she did it, she got Buster a seat next to me. I didn't even care that people were looking at us funny. I was still traumatized. I was still scared. I still thought The Mandarin would find me. At least, The Mandarin didn't come on the TVs while I was on the plane. Then I really would have lost it. The plane was pretty cool though. People were nice, even though that might have been because of an intimidating German shepherd staring them down. I actually spent most of the flight reading my book, and pretending to read while I was really too scared to do anything. I refused to eat or drink anything, I mean _anything_, they gave me. Somewhere during our flight, we started seeing snow. Then the snow started to get heavier and heavier. Then I remember, on my way back from the bathroom that the flight attendant told everybody to sit back down. "May I have everybody's attention?" She said over the loud speaker, "It seems like the snow has gotten too thick for us to fly. We're making an emergency landing in Nashville International Airport." She said.

She had a fake smile plastered on her face that didn't hide her disappointment. She wanted to make it to New York just as much as we did. That must have been where she got off the clock. Everybody groaned and some people started cussing and yelling. The flight attendants were screaming for everybody to calm down, only making it a lot worse. Kids got fidgety and babies started crying at their parent's anger. "The airport says they will give everybody a refund for the rest of their ticket, even in the case that we do get going again tonight." The Captain said over his loudspeaker. That was barely a consultation. It took them 45 minutes to get the plane landed, to get the plane up to the gate, and get everybody off. Then when they realized the snow wasn't going to stop anytime soon, the pulled all the bags out of the plane, which means I got my duffle bag back. We thought the snow would at least stop before 10 pm. But it didn't. At that point, I realized I wasn't getting back to New York anytime soon. I wasn't going back to New York at all. Sometime during the storm, I found out I got a voicemail, from some kind of phone booth. The phone booth was in Tennessee. I thought maybe it was a wrong number, but I decided to listen to it anyway. I didn't have anything else to do, I had already read my book and Buster was passed out on the floor drooling on my shoes.

"Ok, so hey. I know by this point, you're probably in New York, or somewhere else Pepper decided was safer. I already left Pepper a message. It was a disaster, I put the two of you in harm's way, and I'm sorry. I can't come back yet, and I need your help. I don't know if you're going to get this soon enough, but I need you to come. I think you should be able to track this, because I don't want to say it when it could be bugged. I stole a wooden Indian's poncho and I'm still freezing. If you do come can you bring blankets and hot chocolate? Maybe a space heater too? Alex I'm so sorry for everything, and I really need your help." The message said. I started smiling and laughing at that point. People looked at me funny and I didn't care. It was Tony, and he was alive. He was ok. I'm pretty sure I ran the length of the airport in less than 5 minutes. I was at the Guest Services desk. Nobody was there and I rang the bell at least 20 times. Then some woman came out. She could tell I was frantic. "How may I help you?" She asked. "How long until snowplows hit the roads?" I asked. "It might be tomorrow morning, and that's at the earliest." She said, "I'm so sorry." She surely didn't sound it.

"Is there a way I can get a cab out of here?" I asked. "No ma'am." She said, "Well what about…" I started to say. But then I realized she didn't really care then she went back in her office. She didn't even wait for me to finish talking. I did the dumbest thing I've ever done before. I walked out of the airport with Buster. I didn't get very far, maybe a mile and a half. That was the nearest rental car place. Thankfully it was open, and I went in there for warmth. "Hey kid, we're closing." Some guy said, "Look, do you know where the nearest cab company is?" I asked. "Down the road, about a mile." The guy said. "Thank you," I said, walking out the front door, "Kid you can't walk that far in this weather!" He yelled, out the door. He still didn't make any offer to help me. "You don't know what I'm capable of." I said as the door slammed shut behind me. By the time I made it to cab company, both Buster and I were close to getting frost bite. "Oh my god this is cold." I said. When I got inside I had to pay the guy $50 just to leave his office. It took another $50 to get me to the nearest train station. From there, I was able to get myself to Rose Hill, Tennessee. It took another 20 minutes and I spent $250 just to get myself to the outskirts. That cost me more than the plane ticket cost Pepper. I had about $150 left in my pocket, and that wouldn't be enough to get my very far. I had to walk another 5 or 6 miles to get to Rose Hill.

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	10. Chapter 9

**There, I think I'm getting used to this. I'm putting the chapters into the Doc Manager as I go, but I'm still not done with the story.**

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Chapter 9: Rose Hill, Tennessee

By the time I finally made it to Rose Hill I was nearly frozen to death. I had to drag Buster for the last half mile and I thought he was a popsicle for the last ¼ of a mile. I wanted to go home so badly, back where it was warm. I wanted to go back to Malibu. I wanted to go somewhere with a heater. First I ended up spending $35 on blankets, flashlights, tools, 2 books, and a new watch that was missing the second hand. It was a thrift shop and the watch was $5. Then I ended up using another $15 to get something warm to drink in a diner, that and a hot meal for me and Buster. I was now at $100, for the rest of this trip, however long it would have been. It was warm in the diner, so I didn't really want to leave. I didn't have a heavy coat. I didn't think it was going to be so cold, and to be clear I was heading to New York, WHERE IT WASN'T SNOWING OR SO FUCKING COLD! I think I sat there for about 30 minutes. It was 11:30 when I actually realized how late it was getting. Not much later a little boy, maybe 8-10 years old, came in. He reminded me a lot of Tim. "Can I have a tuna fish sandwich, please?" He asked. "Sure." The guy at the bar said, "That'll be $1.25." The boy passed over the money and turned to leave. I stood up, and I was about to go look for Tony when the boy approached me. "Hi." The boy said. "Hey." I said, not sure why he was talking to a stranger.

"I'm Harley." He said, "And you're Alexandra Harbor." I didn't know how he knew who I was, but if Tony was in that town, I knew he most likely met Tony. "He said you were coming." He said. I nodded, confirming the fact that he met Tony. "Talk to me outside." I said, grabbing my stuff. I followed him out the door and down the street. "He's in garage." Harley said. "Why?" I asked, "He must have thought it was abandoned. It sure looks it." Harley said. "Ok, some guy broke into your house and you were the one that noticed?" I asked. "My Mom's working her late shift at the diner. My Dad went to 7-Eleven to get scratchers 6 years ago." He said. I nodded, "Your Mom works at the same diner I was at?" I asked. He nodded, "Yeah. I waited a while after he told me to get him a sandwich. I got all the other stuff he wanted at my house. She's on her break and I don't think she'd want me out at 11." He said. "Smart." I said, "Usually when I did something I wasn't supposed to I would just do it and hope I didn't get caught." He looked up at me while we were walking. "How did that work?" He asked. "It actually worked for a while. I hack stuff. I make firewalls. That's what I do—or it's what I did before my uncle came back into the picture." I said. I didn't know why I was telling him all that stuff. But he was just a 9 year old boy, and he didn't really look vicious. He didn't look dangerous at all.

After that conversation, we were at his garage. It really did look abandoned and I felt sorry for this kid. It was the night before Christmas Eve and this kid was hanging out in a rundown garage. It looked 'Rustic' to say the least. He went in the house and rounded up some stuff, a laptop, a cell phone, a Dora watch, and a town map. He walked into the garage before I did. Then I followed him with Buster. I set my stuff down near some tools and Buster plopped on the ground underneath the table I set my stuff on. Harley took a spring off the counter and set the rest of the stuff down. Tony was too busy working trying to glue the suits fingers back on to notice us. Harley handed him the tuna fish sandwich then the rest of the supplies. "Hey Tony." I said; he waved me over. "I see you found my friend—and everything I need." He said, "Except the Pneumatic Actuator from your Potato gun." He said, gesturing at the weapon in the corner. "A potato gun?" I asked, "You'd think if your mother was going to leave you alone she would at least give you a shotgun." I said. He nodded, "My Dad took it with him when he left." Harley responded. He worked on getting it out of his potato gun with a screwdriver. After a while I thought he was going to break it. "Do you want some help?" I asked. He shook his head, "No. I think I got it this time." He said, optimistically. He almost did have it. Then, once again, the screwdriver slipped and he almost cut his hand. I looked for other tools to use. He tried it again, and it happened again.

I sighed and sifted through the rest of the stuff. "Ok, this isn't going to work." I said, turning back to face him, "We need something else." He sighed, "We need a sonic screwdriver." He said. "Hey…" I said, smiling. Tony held up his hand, he was working at turning JARVIS back on and eating his sandwich. "We aren't talking about Doctor Who right now." He said, his mouth full. If I wasn't already busy, I would have offered to help him. I searched through the tables and desk until I found something I could use. I sat back down and took it from Harley. I wedged a nail in it to get some distance between the pieces of plastic, I didn't want to break Harley's toy, and jammed the screwdriver back in it, releasing it. "There!" I said, handing it off to Harley, who then handed it to Tony. "Thanks." Tony said. We talked for a while as he was working on whatever he was doing. Suddenly Tony jumped up. "Take me to where the guy died." He said. The town actually looked pretty cool. It was like one of those towns you'd see on old TV shows. "The sandwich was fair, the spring was a little rusty, the rest of the materials, I'll make do. By the way, when you said your sister had a watch, I was kinda hoping for something a little more than that." He said, pulling up his sleeve to reveal the Dora watch. Harley laughed, "She's six! Anyway, it's limited edition." He said. Tony nodded and we didn't take for a moment.

"When can we talk about New York?" Harley said, changing the subject. Neither Tony nor I wanted to talk about it. "Maybe never, relax about it." Tony said abruptly. "What about The Avengers, can you talk about them?" He said, trying to find any way through. I admired that kid's persistence. "I don't know, later. Hey kid, give me a little space." Tony said. I was a little nervous about the fact he could freak out on us again. We stopped and turned at the alleyway where it happened. We came closer to it so Tony could investigate. "What's the official story here? What happened?" Tony asked, trying to piece as much together as he could. "I guess this guy named Chad Davis, used to live roundabouts, won a bunch of medals in the army. One day, folks said he went crazy and made, you know, a bomb. Then he blew himself up right here." Harley said. Harley and I sat down at the edge of the crater while Tony was checking out the remains of the area. "Six people died, right?" Tony asked. "Yeah." Harley said, not sure why he was asking if he knew. "Including Chad Davis?" Tony asked, looking for more information. "Yeah." Harley said again. Tony continued to look around. "Yeah. That doesn't make sense." Tony said. Then he sat down on the other side of Harley. "Think about it. Six dead, only five shadows." Tony said, pointing to the shadows on the wall.

"Yeah, people said these shadows are like the mark of souls gone to Heaven. Except the bomb guy, he went to Hell on account of he didn't get a shadow. That's why there's only five." Harley said. That was probably the story he had been hearing for as long as he could remember. "Do you buy that?" Tony asked. "That's what everyone says." Harley answered. "But do you buy that?" I asked. "It always seemed kind of harsh to me." Harley said, "He was troubled or something like that. He thought it was the best option… that's what it seems like to me." I nodded, that seemed like something an adult would say. This kid had done a lot of growing up. He was a lot like I was; and that really scared me. Nobody spoke for a while. "You know what this crater reminds me of?" Harley asked. I didn't even bother saying anything because I knew he was baiting Tony. I was about to say something, then Tony fell into the trap. "No idea. I'm not... I don't care." Tony said, turning to him. "That giant wormhole, in um... in New York. Does it remind you?" He asked, looking at Tony hopefully. "That's manipulative. I don't want to talk about it." Tony said. He turned to me, "Why don't you answer this kid?" He asked. "'Cause I don't exactly want to talk about it right now—we have the guy here and the terrorist dude to deal with." I said. "Are they coming back? The aliens?" Harley asked, firm on getting an answer.

"Maybe. Can you stop? Remember when I told you, that I have an anxiety issue?" Tony said, looking extremely angry at Harley. Tony was close to freaking out and Harley was extremely confused. I knew that Tony had a lot of issues with New York; just like I did. But he was yelling at a little kid. Harley was only 9 years old; a 9 year old boy wanting to know about explosions? That's not exactly out of the ordinary, kids like explosions and superheroes. "Does this subject make you... make you edgy?" Harley asked, trying to understand what was wrong with Tony. "Yeah, a little bit. Can I just catch my breath for a second?" He asked. "Tony… you need to calm down." I said. He didn't even pay attention to me. "Are there bad guys in Rose Hill? Do you... do you need a plastic bag to breathe into? Do you have medication?" Harley asked. "Nope." Tony said. "Do you need to be on it?" Harley asked, starting to panic himself. "Probably." Tony responded. "Harley… now might be a good time to—" I didn't finish my sentence. "Do you have PTSD?" Harley asked. "I don't think so." Tony answered, though I knew it was the opposite. Almost all of us had PTSD after New York. It still messed me up every once in a while. It was hard for me to do anything without panicking, like what Tony was going through. Between Tony's panicking and Harley not knowing when to stop, I was starting to feel a little edgy as well.

"Are you... are you going completely mental? I can stop; do you want me to stop? Do you want me to stop?" Harley asked, starting to ramble. "Remember when I said to stop doing that? I swear to God, you're going to freak me out!" Tony snapped, failing at keeping calm. He suddenly rose. "Ah man, you did it, didn't you? You happy now?" Tony asked, extremely angry. "What did I say?" Harley asked, genuinely confused. Tony ran down the length of the alleyway. Harley and I jumped up and ran after him. Buster was running in front of us and barking like crazy. I kept on thinking that it was a little late for his anxiety alarm; though he was probably having anxiety as well. He was one in tune with everything dog. "Hey, wait up! Wait, wait." Harley said. "Tony—Tony just calm down!" I snapped. Tony stopped and dropped by the stop sign. Before I could say anything, Harley spoke again, "What the hell was that?" He asked. Tony put his hands to his face for a moment. Then he threw some snow at me and Harley. "Your fault, you spazzed me out. Okay, back to business. Where were we? The guy who died... relatives? Mom? Mrs. Davis, where is she?" He asked, getting up off the ground and acting like it never happened. "Where she always is." Harley said. "See, now you're being helpful." Tony said, finally calming down.

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**I think I'm getting closer to finishing this. It's getting easier, and now that I'm in a blizzard basically, I think I have time. Seriously, my house got 5 inches of snow, and we're supposed to get like another 4 in the next day or two. It took down a tree and I'm basically screwed if we lose power again, thank god for smart people that can fix a power line. For reading this story, you must put a review in the box.  
**


	11. Chapter 10

**Getting better and better. I forgot to post about half of my chapters, so all of this is maybe a couple of months old. Still stuck in my house with too much freaking snow. I now hate snow, my dog was eating it last night, not that it knocked a tree down she won't go outside without me dragging her in her winter coat.**

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Chapter 10: Rose Hill attack

"Where is that?" He asked. "She's in the bar." Harley said, pointing it out to him. Then Tony started walking off without us. Harley and I caught back up to Tony. "Hey!" I yelled, "Where do we go?" I asked. He turned around to face me, "Stay behind me. Close enough so you can see and hear me; far enough so they don't know I'm with you." He said. He held his hand out and I slapped the bug into his hand. I nodded, even though I wasn't sure if he didn't want to be seen with 2 kids, or if it was for our protection. I think it was a little bit of both. Tony continued to walk down the street. Harley and I followed not too close. "How can we hear him?" Harley asked. I took out the comms and handed one to Harley. "This is now. I took some stuff from the government agency that ran The Avengers." I said. He put it in his ear, "Now I'm getting some information about The Avengers." He said. I nodded, "That's about it for a while; I'll tell you more if we get the chance." I said. He agreed to that, hoping that he would get more information. We followed Tony at a distance, he bumped into some woman. "Sorry." Tony said. The woman dropped something. "Lady, this uh..." He picked up the item and handed it back to the woman. "Thank you." She said. "Nice haircut, suits you." He said, noticing something we didn't see. "Nice watch." The woman said sarcastically.

"Yeah, limited edition." Tony responded. "Oh, I don't doubt it." She said. There was a moment's pause. "Well, have a good evening." She said. Then she walked off, in the opposite direction Tony was going in. Tony entered the bar and we had to stand outside and just listen to him. "Mrs. Davis, mind if I join you?" We heard him say. "Free country." Some woman—Mrs. Davis said. "It sure is." Tony said. He must have sat down next to her. "Alright. Where'd you like to start?" She said. At that point we thought maybe she was used to people coming up to her about it. "I just want to say I'm sorry about your loss. I want to know what you think happened." He said. "Look, I brought your damn file. You take it and go." She said, confirming that she wasn't waiting for him. We heard the _plop_ of a file on the table. "Whatever was in here, he wanted no part of it." She said. "Clearly, you're waiting for someone else. Yeah? Supposed to meet somebody here?" He asked. "Yeah." She said. We heard sounds of him flipping through the file. "Mrs. Davis, your son didn't kill himself, I guarantee you. He didn't kill anyone. Someone used him." Tony said, "What?" She asked. "As a weapon." Tony responded. At that point, all three of us pieced together the fact that The Mandarin attacks were people. That's how he got past every sensor and there were no bomb pieces. The people were just gone. "You're not the person who called me after all, are you?" She asked. Tony didn't get the chance to answer.

There was something slammed down on the table they were sitting at. "Actually, I am." A woman said, the same woman the bumped into him outside the bar. We heard the sound of Tony being slammed down on the table, as the bug gave off feedback, causing both me and Harley to wince. We heard a sound of metal clinking. "Hey, hey, hey! What's all this about? What the hell's going on here?" Somebody said. "That's Sheriff Jones." Harley whispered. I nodded, thinking he could stop whatever was happening. "It's called an arrest." The woman said. There was a sound of Tony hitting the ground. "Sheriff, is it?" She asked. "Yes ma'am, it is. And you are?" He asked. "Homeland Security." She said. She must have had some kind of badge. "We good here?" She asked. "No, we're not good. I need a little more information than that. "Well, I think it's a little above your pay grade, Sheriff." She said. "Yeah, well, why don't you get on the horn to Nashville and uh... upgrade me?" Sherriff Jones said. Then there was a sound on paper being slid across something, making me think Mrs. Davis did something with the file. "Alright, you know what? I was hoping to do this the smart way, but uh... the fun way's always good." She said. Harley and I wished that we could get in there, but we were too young. Then there was the sound of something burning, which made me and Harley grow concerned.

"Deputy, get this woman and..." Sheriff Jones started to say. Then we heard the sound of something hot hitting him and then a bullet. Then there was a woman, most likely Mrs. Davis screaming. She bolted from the bar. Harley and I ushered her over and I explained that we were with Tony. "Hey hot wings, you wanna party? You and me, let's go." Tony said. Tony ran out of the bar, followed by the woman. Then all 4 of us saw Savin get out of his car. Savin took out a gun to shoot at Tony, but Harley threw something to make him miss. Tony ran off and stopped behind a car. Mrs. Davis, Harley, Buster, and I ran down the street, away from Savin and down a back alley. There was this little junkyard behind the shops, behind the water tower. "Crazy, huh?" Tony said to somebody. "Yeah." A man answered. "Watch this." Tony responded and then we heard a smashing window. We didn't need the comms to hear that part, the shop was right in front of the junkyard. Suddenly we heard somebody else enter and a fire start. "You walked right into this one; I've dated hotter chicks than you." Tony said. Then we heard him set something and turn a valve. Then Savin came around the back, following us slowly. "That's all you got? Cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?" The woman said to Tony. We weren't the only ones having issues. "Mrs. Davis, you need to go. He'll be here for us in a minute, but Savin will kill you no matter what." I whispered. She took my hint and ran off.

Harley and I stopped Savin from going after her by throwing snowballs and random junk we could find. Then he took out his gun and shot over our heads multiple times. "Sweetheart that could be the name of my autobiography." Tony said. Harley and I were just backing into the fence at that point. Savin grabbed Harley by the back of his jacket, and me by my shoulder. Buster started snarling at him and Savin pointed his gun at him, "Control your dog or I'll shoot him." Savin said, breathing down my neck. I was so scared I actually listened to him. That didn't stop me from struggling against him, "Let us go!" I snapped. If he and that other guy caused what happened at the Chinese Theater, then I didn't want to be anywhere near him. Harley was even more scared than I was, but he was still trying to get loose. Then we heard an explosion, causing the comms to have feedback again. Tony got out of the building, but got trapped under some rubble, he saw that Savin had grabbed me and Harley and looked at us wide eyed. "Let us go!" Harley repeated. "Help me! Help me!" Savin said, mocking us. Tony struggled to get out of the rubble. Savin sat down in a chair and set Harley on his lap. He forced me down on my knees beside him and Buster continued to growl. "Hey kid, what would you like for Christmas?" Savin asked, as if he was Santa Claus. "Mr. Stark, I am so sorry!" Harley said, trying to get loose once again.

"Oh. No, no. I think he was trying to say 'I want my goddamn file'." Savin responded, staring Tony down. "It's not your fault kid. Remember what I told you about bullies?" Tony said. Harley realized that Tony was talking about the 'Discourages bullies' device that Harley had showed me. Harley dug around in his pocket and used the device on Savin. It knocked him to the ground and Harley and I got loose. "You like that, West World?" Tony said. Harley and I ran into the junkyard. "That's the thing about smart guys, we always cover our ass." Tony responded. Suddenly Tony used his Iron Man hand plasma blaster to render Savin useless. He pulled his leg out and walked over to take Savin's car keys. He walked towards Savin's car while looking at the file. Then Harley and I walked out from where we were hidden. Mrs. Davis had given us blankets and we were still soaking wet. Harley had on a cowboy looking hat, because that was all she had to give us. "You're welcome!" Harley snapped as we caught up to them. "For what? Did I miss something?" Tony said. "Me saving your life." Harley said. I nodded, it was true. "Yeah. A: Saved you first, B: Thanks, sort of, and C: If you do someone a solid, don't be a yutz, alright? Just play it cool otherwise you come off grandiose." Tony responded, making Harley extremely mad. "Unlike you? Admit it, you need me. We're connected." Harley said, trying to make a point. Tony opened the door to Savin's car. "What I need is for you to go home, be with your mom, keep your trap shut, guard the suit. And stay connected to the telephone, because if I call, you better pick up. Okay? Can you feel that? We're done here. Move out of the way or I'm gonna run you over. Bye, kid." Tony said, getting into the car.

He started the engine and was about to drive off, then he stopped and rolled down the window. "I'm sorry, kid. You did good." Tony said to Harley. Harley was trying to convince him to take us with him, "So now you're just gonna leave me here, like my dad?" Harley asked. "Yeah." Tony said before he thought. Then he paused for a moment, processing what Harley had said. "Wait, you're guilt-tripping me, aren't you?" Tony said accusingly. Harley was trying to play up Tony's sympathies; he gave him the puppy dog eyes and said in the sweetest voice he could, "I'm cold." I thought he did a good job for a 9 year old. "I can tell. You know how I can tell? Cause we're connected." Tony said, mocking him. Then Tony took off, leaving the two of us standing there freezing in the middle of the street. "It was worth a shot." Harley said. I nodded, "You did good." I said, "He almost fell for it." We started walking down the street, then it seemed to hit Harley. "He does realize he left you here, right?" Harley asked. I paused for a moment and shook my head, "I don't even know anymore." I said, sighing. He was going to realize what happened eventually, I just hoped he wasn't too far away. Harley and I continued to walk down the street and back to his house. At least we'd be ready if he did return. Plus he did leave 2 kids to hook up an Iron Man suit and make it work. That was basically a dumb idea.

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**By the way, does Home Depot sell chainsaws? My Dad needs to cut down 2 different trees now. For reading this story, you must put a review in the box**


	12. Chapter 11

**Ok, so this chapter stemed from the fact that I was too lazy to go and rewrite the last chapter after he left her there, and the fact that he never showed Harley how to hook up the Iron Man suit. So this is basically a fix it chapter.**

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Chapter 11: A lot of waiting

I don't know how long it took Tony to realize what he did wrong. But it did take him a lot longer than expected to realize the 6 important points. These 6 important points are:

1. He left me in Rose Hill

2. He left some of his stuff there

3. He left me and Harley alone to deal with the Iron Man suit

4. He left without telling us what to do

5. He left us with his suit

6. **HIS SUIT!**

Harley and I thought we could work on trying to get it to work until Tony got back. But as soon as we got dried off, guess who decided to hack the TV airwaves again. The Mandarin. Yay! If you can see the sarcasm; plus 10 points for you. If you didn't, minus 50 points. From what we had seen on the news, President Ellis would be on Air Force One until the threat had passed. I don't even know why they would tell us that. It kind of got rid of the point of keeping him safe. This message was actually geared towards the president. It was the same as it always was; he was sitting in his chair. A phone was next to him this time though. "Mr. President, only two lessons remain. And I intend to finish this before Christmas morning. Meet Thomas Richards." He said, keeping his stoic mask. The camera zoomed out to see a man tied up and lying on the floor. He looked close to crying. Harley and I were gawking at the screen. "Good strong name, good strong job. Thomas here is an accountant for the Roxxon Oil Corporation. And I'm sure he's a really good guy. I'm gonna shoot him in the head, live on your television, in thirty seconds." The Mandarin said. Harley and I were really and truly shocked, he didn't seem like he would do it at first. Harley and I looked at each other; I could tell we were thinking the same thing. We were praying that he was just bluffing. Even though we knew he wasn't. Thomas Richards actually did start crying at that point, even with the gag in his mouth. The Mandarin pointed to the phone next to him.

"Oh my god." Harley muttered. "The number for this telephone is in your cell phone. Exciting, isn't it? Imagining how it got there. America, if your president calls me in the next half-minute, Tom lives. Go." The Mandarin said. "How did he hack the president's phone?" I asked, more to myself than to Harley or Buster. "The aides aren't going to allow him to dictate what the president does." Harley said. "He has to make that call, he knows he has to make that call." I said, shaking my head. "They must be telling him not to, or he would have done it by now." Harley responded. Then the phone next to the Mandarin started to ring. Both Harley and I let out a sigh of relief, though we still didn't take our eyes off the screen. After a moment, we realized he wasn't going to take the call. Then he pointed his gun at the man, and shot him. Both Harley and I flinched. "There's just one lesson left, President Ellis. So run away, hide, kiss your children goodbye. Because nothing, not your army, not your red, white and blue attack dog can save you! I'll see you soon." He said. Then, he went off the air. It took a moment, but then I shook my head and tried to forget about it. "H—H—Harley… I—I think we—we should g—g—go work on the s—s—suit." I said, stuttering horribly. I had known people that had gotten killed, but he was the first person I actually watched getting killed, other than the Chitari and I didn't count them as people. They were evil aliens. Harley nodded, and we just at some local channel while we worked.

We didn't get very far into fixing the suit before Tony showed up; though I did almost get electrocuted more than once. Tony just barged through the door, not even bothering to knock. At that point Harley was banging the car battery against the ground and I was laughing pretty hard. "WHAT are you two doing?!" Tony snapped when he walked through the door. "What does it look like—we're fixing the suit." I said. At that point Harley started laughing. Buster was belly up on the couch, looking as blissful as he possibly could. "I see you remembered me." I said, trying not to hold a grudge. "Oh come on." I said, "I lived with a conman—at least he made sure I was in the car before he left!" I snapped. "Fine, get your stuff. Put it in the car. Then get back here. It should take 15 minutes tops to hook it up." He said. "How long will it take to charge?" Harley asked. "I don't know… too long for me to wait." He responded. I did as he said. While I put my stuff in the car, I noticed something under the driver's seat. I could tell it belonged to Savin. It was one of those cases that held some of the stuff he gave the guy at the theater. If only I had known it was connected, then I could have done something. I honestly thought Happy and I had stumbled upon something about drugs, and the Mandarin attack had just been too close for comfort. It didn't sit right with me. I didn't like coincidences, but I thought that was all it was. I dropped the case back under the seat and wrapped it into a blanket. "Buster, stay." I said, pointing for him. He jumped up into the seat and curled up halfway under my duffel bag.

I scratched him behind the ears and slammed the car door closed. The window was wide open and I wasn't going to be more than 15 minutes. He could have climbed out if he wanted to. I went back to walk through the door. "—and that's when I noticed that the word MIA on the document spelled AIM, and the ink looked weird because it was on the wrong side of the paper." Tony responded to something Harley said. "Tony how long should this take?" I asked quickly. "Maybe another 10 minutes, if you guys can hook up the cables while I work with the battery, we should be able to get it done soon." He said. Harley and I went to work right away at it. We got it hooked up faster than Tony thought we would, but I was rushing. As I worked I decided to tell Tony what was on my mind, "I think we can hack the Mandarin signals." I said, working as fast as I could with my hands shaking. "What—how?" Tony asked. "We need Rhodey's login, a computer, and a TV signal." I said, "But from that I think the two of us could hack it and find the signal." I said. Tony nodded, "How do you come up with this stuff?" Tony asked, "And so quickly." He said shaking his head. "If I could hack S.H.I.E.L.D signals while in the middle of S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters, and not get caught… then I think I can do this." I said. "Speaking of computers, I need to work with Harley's a bit so JARVIS can connect to it when he's up and running." I said. I turned on the computer got as far as the lock screen, "A firewall, nice touch." I said, turning to Harley.

"You never know when you'll need one." Harley said. "Password?" I asked. He went up and typed it in: **4885737**. "Why those numbers?" I asked. "I wanted something random… the firewall is only on this computer." He said. I nodded, "Nice going." I said, "You thought of everything." I said. He nodded and went back to working on the suit. "And now I need your Wi-Fi password." I said. "KeenerH9E6." He said. "What does E stand for?" I asked as I was typing it in. "Elizabeth." Harley responded. "That's your sister's name?" I asked, "And my Mom's." He said, nodding. "I think I'm done." Tony said. I took one of the cables connected to the suit, then put it into the computer. "I'm done too." I said. "Finished." Harley said. Tony stood up and walked to the door. "Now man the computer." Tony said to Harley, then he went back to the car. "Good luck kid." I said, "Try not to get caught." I patted him on the back. He stopped me first, "What do I do?" He asked. "Just eat some candy and watch the computer." I said, "You don't need to worry, they can't trace it here. But keep an eye out for them just in case." He nodded and I followed Tony out to the car. It was going to be a long, _long_ winter vacation for me. "Why couldn't I have stayed with one of them?" I muttered under my breath as I sat in the car. "What was that?" Tony asked, "Nothing." I said, leaving it at that. I think that was the time I fell asleep against the window. Of course, that didn't last too long. Tony's skidding on many, many patches of black ice made sure of that. At least he never crashed; though we got pretty close about 15 times.

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**Ok, so the fix it chapter sucked. For reading this story, you must put a review in the box.**


	13. Chapter 12

**I really hope that you guys like this.**

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Chapter 12: The TV truck

Tony didn't take us to far this time. We made it to the center of town, the other side from where the attacks were. "Wait, Tony pull over." I said. "Why?" He asked, "Look, it's a TV truck." I said pointing it out. "Ok, what about it?" He asked. "Tony I think we can hack into it from here." I said. He nodded and pulled over. Then he started trying to call Rhodey. We went outside and stood by the TV truck. Tony and I were waiting for the guy inside there to leave. Then Rhodey started to pick up and we walked a bit away to hear the call. He put the phone on speaker. "Hello." Rhodey said. "Did you ever have a chick straddling you and you look up and suddenly she's glowing from the inside out, kind of a bright orange?" Tony asked. I tried not to laugh at the way he phrased that. "Yeah, I've had that. Who is this?" Rhodey asked. "It's me, pal. Now last time I went missing, if I remember correctly, you came looking for me. What are you doing?" Tony said. "A little knockin' talking, making friends in Pakistan. What are you doing?" He said. I guessed that he was checking things out in Pakistan. "Your re-design, your big re-brand, that was AIM, right?" I asked, cutting in. "Alex quit it." Tony whined. "Hey kid. But yeah, it was." He said. "I'm gonna find a heavy-duty comsat right now, I need your login." Tony said.

"It's the same as it's always been, War Machine 68." Rhodey said. "Were there 67 other War Machines?" I asked. "No." Rhodey said, "Then why that number?" I asked. "It's my lucky number." He said. "And password please?" Tony asked. "Well, look, I gotta change it every time you hack in, Tony." Rhodey responded. If Tony had let me do my thing I could have hacked it without letting Rhodey know. "It's not the eighties, nobody says 'hack' anymore. Give me your login." Tony said. "Hey! I do!" I said. "Yes, and I find that weird. You're a little girl." Tony said. "I'm 12!" I could hear Rhodey sigh. "War Machine Rocks with an X, all caps." Rhodey said sheepishly. We could hear someone else laugh and the sound of one of Rhodey's guns open up. Tony and I started laughing. "Yeah, okay." Rhodey said, sighing again. "That is so much better than Iron Patriot." Tony said, trying not to laugh. Then we went back around to the TV truck, nobody was in there. There were a lot of cameras, television monitors, and computers in that one van. On one of the screens was the beauty pageant which was going on inside the building. "That ain't gonna cut it." Tony muttered. Suddenly the guy who owned the truck came in on his cell phone. He opened the van door then stared at me and Tony. "Excuse me, sir. I don't know who..." He started to say. "Shh…" Tony said, putting his finger to his lips.

Then the camera man recognized Tony. "Mom, I need to call you back, something magical is happening." He said. His grin was growing wider and wider and he was beginning to look like a creepy obsessed fan girl. "Shh." Tony said again. "Tony Stark is in my van." The man said. "Keep it down." Tony said, gritting his teeth. "Tony Stark is in my van!" He said again. "No, he's not." Tony said, trying to make him calm down. "I knew you were still alive!" He said again. "Come on in and close the door." Tony said. The man came inside. "Wow, can I just say, sir?" He said. "Yeah." Tony said, not really paying attention. "I am your biggest fan." He said. "Okay. First, is this your van, is anyone else gonna come in?" Tony asked. "No, no, no. It's just us." The cameraman said. "What's your name?" Tony asked. "Gary." He said. I was watching them go back and forth, hoping this wasn't going to take too long. "Gary." Tony repeated. Tony shook his hand and Gary looked like he was about to pass out. "This isn't awkward at all." I said, keeping my hand on Buster's head. "Oh, wow." Gary said, not seeming to hear what I had said. "Right there's fine." Tony said. "Okay." Gary responded. "I get a lot of this, it's okay." Tony said. "Oh, good. Can I just say?" Gary said again. "What do you... Yeah." Tony said, trying to make it seem like it wasn't awkward. It really was awkward; really, really awkward. "I don't know if you can tell, but I have like, patterned my whole look after you." Gary said. I nodded nervously. He took off his hat to show us how he patterned his hair. "My hair's a little...it's not right." Gary responded. "It's fine." Tony said. "Because there's no product in it." Gary said. "Right." Tony said, starting to get nervous himself.

"I don't wanna make things awkward for you…" Gary said. "You're not." Tony lied. I wanted to get this guy as far away from us as humanly possible. "But I do have to show you... boom!" He said as he rolled up his sleeve. He showed us the tattoo he had on his arm. "A Hispanic Scott Baio? Oh, I'm sorry. Is that me?" Tony asked, looking kind of horrified. "Yeah. It's uh... I mean, I had them do it off a doll that I made, so it's not like it's off a picture. So it's a little bit..." Gary said, looking a little embarrassed. I was now terrified of this crackpot. "Jerry, listen to me, okay? I don't wanna clip your wings here, we're both a little over-excited. I got an issue. I'm chasing bad guys, trying to grapple with something from some hard-crypt data files. I don't have enough juice. I need you to jump on the roof, right? Recalibrate the ISDNs, pump it up by about forty percent." Tony said. "Got it." Gary said, willing to do whatever his idol told him to do. "Right, it's a mission." Tony said, trying to psych Gary up. He did that a lot with people. "Yeah." Gary said, getting more and more excited. "Tony needs Gary." Tony said. "And Gary needs Tony." Gary said, acting like the president just gave him a medal. "Be quiet about it." Tony said. "Yeah." Gary responded. He still didn't move for a while. "Go." Tony said. Then Gary bolted from the van. We could still hear him clambering around trying to get everything ready. Tony went to work on the computer. I waited for him to tell me what to do, but for some reason he didn't.

But then my curiosity got the better of me. "Tony who's Scott Baio?" I asked. He looked at me funny for a second before saying, "Stop watching BBC and start living your life." He said. I could tell he didn't mean a lot of offense by it, because he actually did like me. Or that's what Pepper told me. I rolled my eyes, "You sound like Dina." I said, somewhat annoyed. "Well then start watching something American." He grumbled. "BBC's cool." I said, kind of offended. "You said the same thing about bow ties." Tony responded. "Hey! Bow ties are cool." I said. "Alex, turn off the TV and start living life." He said, "Make new friends, take your dog to the park, and most of all try not to get arrested." I wanted to slap him at that point, "I've never been arrested." I said. "But you and the taser girl did trash Jameson's office." He said. I barely even blinked, "So everybody other than Jameson knew it was us." I stated. He nodded, "It was pretty obvious. Now the only person Jameson is treating worse than you is that Spiderman guy." Tony said, scoffing. I didn't bother telling Tony that I had met him. I also didn't want to tell Tony that I had nearly been killed by a giant lizard because of Spiderman. "Why do I get the feeling you aren't telling me something?" Tony asked. "I nearly got killed because of Spiderman and a giant lizard-man." I just blurted out. I didn't even care anymore. "Ok. Try not to let it happen again." Tony said. And do you want to know the worse part. Tony actually heard what I said.

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**Ok, so Tony is kind of odd. I really do have no clue who Scott Baio is. And I have only seen 11th Doctor, my friends had me do the other references because they love the 10th Doctor. I'd watch it, but I had DirectTV and BBC America is stupid. **

**"Ok, let's play this episode. Then we'll play this episode." **

**"But that episode happened over a year after the other episode."**

**"Then we'll play this episode."**

**"That one was from 6 years ago!"**

**"Does it matter?"**

**Seriously, that must be how they think!**


	14. Chapter 13

**I think this is getting better. I'm working on 14 or 15 right now, but they get a little bit longer.**

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Chapter 13: Hacking and Tracking

Tony and I managed to log into AIM's server. With Rhodey's military login it wasn't too hard. Then started to investigate their research, it looked pretty admirable at first. By the time we finally got in there he found a bunch of videos. One of them was of Chad Davis being interviewed. So he clicked on it. I sat down instead of standing over Tony's shoulder. "What would you regard as the defining moment of your life?" Killian asked. "Well, uh... I think that'd be the day I decided not to let my injury beat me." Chad Davis said. Then he found footage of the woman, who had lost one of her arms. "Will you please state your name for the camera?" Killian asked. "Ellen Brandt." She said. "Okay. So, the injections are administered periodically. Addiction will not be tolerated and those who cannot regulate will be cut from the program." Killian said. Then Tony clicked on another video. Killian was giving a speech to a group of soldiers. "Once misfits, cripples... you are the next iteration of human evolution." Killian said. Then it was them getting their first treatment. "Hi, everybody. Before we start, I promise you, looking back at your life there will be nothing as bitter as the memory of that glorious risk that you prudently elected to forego. Today is your glory. Let's begin!" He said, making it seem like it was worth all the pain they would go through and all the danger they would face.

The soldiers started to get injected and they started to glow red. Most of them were regrowing their limbs, but one of them started screaming in pain. He was rejecting the Extremis treatment. "We gotta get out of here! Gotta get out of here! Get 'em out! Get 'em out of here!" Killian yelled. That solider, they just left him there to explode. "A bomb is not a bomb when it's a misfire. This stuff doesn't always work, right, pal? It's faulty, but you found a buyer, didn't you? Sold it to the Mandarin. Got you." Tony said, talking to the screen. Tony and I ran from the van, me dragging Buster behind me. "We got it Gary!" Tony said, giving him a thumbs up. Gary waved at us from the roof of the van. "Glad I could help!" He yelled. Then he fell off of the roof. "Gary are you ok?" I asked. "I think so." He said, starting to stand up. "Remember to keep this a secret." Tony said. "Ok… ok, I promise I'll keep it a secret." Gary said. Tony helped him up and he brushed himself off. "Ok, so nobody will ever find out that you were here." Gary said. Then he ran back into his van and slammed the door. "Why do I get the feeling he's either living out of his van or with his mother?" Tony asked. "Tony." I said, "Come on. Let's just get going." He nodded and we got in the car. On our way, somewhere Tony called Harley.

"Harley, tell us what's happening, give us a full report." Tony said. "Yeah, I'm still eating that candy, do you want... do you want me to keep eating it?" He asked. "How much did you have?" I asked from the backseat. "Two or three bowls." Harley responded. "Can you still see straight?" I asked. "Sort of." Harley responded. "That means you're fine. Give me JARVIS." Tony said. Harley must have put the phone onto the Mark 42 helmet. "JARVIS, how are we?" Tony asked. "It's totally fine, sir. I seem to do quite well for a stretch and then at the end of the sentence I say the wrong cranberry. And, sir, you were right. Once I factored in available AIM downlink facilities, I was able to pinpoint the Mandarin's broadcast signal." JARVIS said. He was temporarily working properly. "What're we talkin'? Far East, Europe, North Africa, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, where is it?" Tony asked. "Actually, sir, it's in Miami." JARVIS responded. I could tell that both Tony and I were wondering if he said the right thing. "Okay." Tony said to JARVIS, then he spoke to Harley, "Kid, I'm gonna have to walk you through rebooting JARVIS' speech drive, but not right now. Harley, where is he really? Just look on the screen and tell me where it is." Tony said. "Um...it does say Miami, Florida." Harley responded with. Tony didn't seem to be bothered by that. "Okay, first things first, I need the armor. Where are we at with it?" Tony asked.

"Uh... it's not charging." Harley said. It sounded as if he knew what was going to happen. Tony seemed to freeze up in his seat, and I was ready for the worst to happen. Tony pulled off the road faster than he should have and stopped the car, causing everything to fly forward. "Tony what the hell was that?!" I yelled, slamming back in my seat with force. Buster yelped as I had to grip him tightly to keep him from flying off the seat. "Actually, sir, it's charging, but the power source is questionable. It may not succeed in revitalizing the Mark 42." JARVIS said. Buster started whining as if he could sense what was coming. "What's questionable about electricity? Alright, it's my suit and I can't... I'm not gonna... I don't wanna..." Tony was starting to have a panic attack. "Oh God, not again." Tony said, ripping the car door open and running out of the car. "Tony?" Every word I said was met with silence. "Tony? Are you having another attack? I didn't even mention New York." Harley said over the speaker phone. "Right, and then you just said it, by name, while denying having said it!" Tony yelled. It didn't bother me that I wasn't getting answered and Harley was. Harley was better at this than I was.

"Tony calm down! He's 9!" I snapped. "Okay... um... uh..." Harley said, trying to figure out what to say. He knew he royally screwed up, but there was nothing he could do to fix it. There was nothing I could do to fix it, and I was usually good at fixing things. "Oh, God. What am I gonna do?" Tony said, sitting on the ground. "Tony calm down." I said again, calmer this time. The calm down part was kind of for the both of us. "Alex! Shut up!" Tony snapped. I thought it was an improvement from the silence I had been getting. "Just breathe. Really, just breathe. You're a mechanic, right?" Harley asked, knowing what to say more than I did. "Right." Tony said. "You said so." Harley said. "Yes, I did." Tony said. I knew exactly what Harley was getting at. "Why don't you just build something?" Harley asked. Tony paused for a moment, then he rose and got back in the car. "Okay, thanks kid." He said, acting as if nothing had happened at all. Harley hung up the phone to get back to work. I took a deep breath as Tony started driving again. "Tony? Are you ok now?" I asked. "Yep. Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" He asked, trying to pretend nothing happened. "You know what, why don't we find a Home Depot or a mall with a hardware store? Then we can make some weapons to save the world from The Mandarin…" I said. Then I had time to think about what I had just said, "God that never seems less weird." I sighed. Tony started laughing.

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	15. Chapter 14

**I cut this chapter in half, and decided to make the next action-y part it's own chapter. As that was like a 7 page chapter.**

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Chapter 14: Working it out

Tony and I drove until we hit a shopping center. He stopped in front of a clothing store, after a few turns I think were illegal to make. "Alex, you stay in the car. I need to make sure nobody can recognize me." He said, not giving me an option. I nodded, "Ok, so what do I do?" I asked. "I don't care, just stay in the car and don't attract any attention." He said, getting out of the car. Then he bent down to look in my still open window. "Don't use your phone." He said looking at me as if he was commanding a solider, which I knew I was not, "We can't risk it." I nodded and rolled up my window. He went inside the store. "Ok, well this sucks." I said, looking down at Buster not even a second later. "He doesn't trust me… not that I blame him." I said. I did a lot of stuff that I wasn't proud of back in New York; a lot of it was as my own form of blackmail or out of anger. "I screwed up big time in New York." I said, to nobody but myself and my dog. I picked my bag off the floor and dug around inside of it for a moment. I pulled out the picture of all of my friends, Buster, and I in my apartment. "I swear, all I want is my apartment back." I muttered to myself. "If I get anything for Christmas, anything at all, I just want to see my friends one more time before he finds out I don't have the money." I said quietly. Buster looked at me with his sad eyes, eyes that looked beyond their years. "I'm so sorry boy." I said, scratching his head. "2012 sucked, hopefully 2013's better." It was true. 2012 hadn't gone easy on me. I had a feeling that 2013 wouldn't either.

I couldn't help but feel like it was all my fault, even though some of it was out of my control. Everything that had happened back in New York, that is. The universe I had called home for so long ceased to exist, because of a stupid move I made. I caused the storm, but I didn't cause all of it. It was partially my fault, but, then again, S.H.I.E.L.D could have just used me as an asset, not as a solider. Then I caught myself in my thoughts. "S.H.I.E.L.D used me." I whispered. Buster snarled, as he agreed. Fury had put me on the spot, and I had to choose between being interrogated to find out where they were, or go with them and fight. Against my better judgment, and Tony's judgment, I bent down to my backpack, and grabbed my cell phone. I took it out and turned it on, even though Tony had told me it wasn't safe. Since when did I listen to him? Since when did I listen to anyone? Once I finally got it turned on and unlocked, I saw that I had 15 different messages. The first 3 were from Morgan, the next 2 were from Gabby, the next one was from Abby, then 4 were from Carmen, one was from Kaiann, 3 were from Dani, one was from Maddie, and one was from Dina. I felt guilty that I was putting them through all that, but I needed to keep them safe. "This must suck for them too." I said quietly. This was going to be the first year in a long time that we weren't going to be able to have our usual New Year's Eve party. We had been best friends for a long time, and we probably weren't going to be able to see each other for a while. I started clicking.

**Morgan's: "Hey, you said you'd call and we were all wondering if you would. Call me back if you get this." "Alex, everybody's getting worried. After the house collapsed, we want to know where you are. Almost everybody at school thinks you're dead. It's all over their Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. They're debating whether they think you're alive or not. Kaiann cussed most of them out. Aubrey said 'Good riddance' on her Twitter account and I think Rayina was the one that beat her up. The quiet little 'Mouse Girl' beat up Aubrey." "Alex, please call me back. Please, please, please, please call me back. Call anybody, hell, call the teachers. Just let us know if you're ok. Let us know where you are. We need to know at least something." **

**Gabby's: "Hey, everyone's wondering where you are. Call somebody back even just to say 'Hey I'm alive', we really need to know something." "Please let us know if you're ok. We miss you, we're scared, please call us back." "Look, we're all worried about you. Some guys were hanging around your old apartment building. They look like government or the 7. Something along those lines, and I need to know if you're ok." **Then she must have handed the phone to Brendan,** "Hey, can you call us back?" **Then he must have handed it to Tyler, **"Everyone's worried about you. We have no idea what's going on. I know I pissed you off, but please let us know where you are." **

**Abby's: "Hey Alex, I know it's been a while since I actually called you, you got a new number, but I think you should still have me as a contact—I got your new, newer, number off Morgan. We're all really, really worried and we miss you. Please let us know if you're ok. I think Gabby told you when she called, but there were a lot of guys hanging around your old building. One day, when I was walking passed the building I saw government. They had a symbol that looked like an eagle or hawk or something along those lines. Then, a few hours later, when I was walking home, I saw some guys that looked like the 7. We're all getting really worried. We think they might be after you again. We know the 7 is, they even went up to Morgan's parents and asked if they knew where you were. They said they didn't, and I think they believed them."**

**Carmen's: "Alex, can you please let somebody know if you're ok. Almost everybody has called you to ask if you're ok. Maybe you just haven't checked your phone yet. You said something a couple years ago, 'If you think you're in danger or you're life's at risk, don't use your phone'. I hope you'll call me back. Or call somebody back. Please, please, please let us know where you are." "Please can you call somebody back. We're really, extremely, massively worried about you. Hey, I'll even let you make fun of me from that Dipstick FunDip incident. You thought that was hilarious, and you can tell whoever you want about that." "Ok, so if you call me back I will give you everything I own that has to do with Doctor Who… ok maybe one thing… or a couple. I can get you the cats back from my sister if you want them back. I swear I will do anything if you call me back." "Alexandra Grace Harbor, if you don't call somebody back I am going to have a breakdown." **Rayina must have taken the phone from her,** "Alex, please call her back, she really will flip out." **

**Kaiann's: "Alex, we made a deal that we would try and call you at least once. Brendan and Tyler aren't calling you because you don't have their numbers. We will do anything to know that you're ok. Call Morgan back, just call Morgan back. Everybody in our class has her number—everybody can know that you're ok. Please just call us back. We're so, so worried about you. GOD DAMN IT ALEX! Why won't you pick up for anyone?"**

**Dani's: "Hey, can you pick up. Kaiann just called me sobbing, telling me to try and call you. Please can you pick up? We've been trying to call you since the house collapsed." "We all miss you. Most of the class thinks you're dead. Aubrey's a bitch so Rayina and I went over to her house and we beat the ever loving shit out of her." "Alexandra Grace Harbor, pick up the motherfucking phone so I can scream and scream and scream at you for not calling us! You know I don't mean most of that—ok, part of it. You are the best friend anybody could have, who else would teach her friends all this technobabble stuff. It's all so cool and useful. How do you think I found out all this stuff about The Mandarin and how people thought it had to do with you and Tony disappearing? Nobody wants to lose you as a friend; we're all really worried about you. We need to know what's going on. Please just call somebody so we can know what's going on. You are one of my best friends, but you can be infuriating. SO FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, ALEX JUST PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE!"**

**Maddie's: "Please pick up the phone before everybody has a fucking panic attack. I thought Morgan was going to slap half the kids in our class… or maybe even worse. You know that half of Aubrey's little gang said they were hoping that you were dead. Everyone else is so worried about you. Everybody is so, so, so, so, so worried about you. We're getting extremely scared for you."**

**Dina's: "Hey, I know it's been a while since I've seen you. But I'm worried about you. I know everybody's probably been trying to call you; except Deuce. He's being an idiot, so don't take it personally. He hasn't even answered my calls. You'd think he'd be happy to know that his girlfriend—and cousin, aren't dead. I'll try and call him again. Alex, you've done stuff like this before, but not on this scale, usually it had to do with one of the little 'Missions' that the 7 would send us on—like Mexico when you hid in the shipping crate with Sam for 3 days and didn't send us a sign to know you guys were alive. I know you're alive, and I know you're probably scared to death. I remember you texting me and Deuce from the car before New York. I'm sorry that we lied to you about so much. But back then, the 7 w****_as_**** actually a family that would do anything for each other. Now it's all about the money, and they want you dead. Don't worry about them, just worry about getting out of this mess—my Dad wants to say something."** She must have handed the phone to her Dad; it didn't seem like it was on speaker. **"Now, Alex, I know this is probably terrifying for you, just like we know New York was. But we're doing everything we can to keep him from trying to kill you. We know he's going to try it, and you and Dina are the only ones whose phones he didn't hack. That's why we're using hers. Just give him the money by January 1****st**** and run. Before Dina and I left, he told me where you had to meet him—I think he left that part out of his story. He said you had to meet him by The Coffee Hut, in downtown San Francisco. It's on the corner of Whitman Avenue and Martin Street. That's all we can tell you to do. Just run, remember to run. He thinks you're just going to take it, so if you run it might catch him by surprise. Then I think we can think of a way to stop him from trying to kill you.**

I smiled sadly after I listened to all their messages. They wanted to know if I was ok, they wanted to help me. At the same time, I was worried as hell. The 7 _and_ S.H.I.E.L.D were looking for me. S.H.I.E.L.D at this point, I could have cared less if they caught me. I actually would have rather been there than in the situation I was in at the time. I could see Tony from the window; he was at the checkout line. "I'll be back in a minute." I said and threw the door open. I ran over to the payphone, leaving my phone sitting on the seat next to Buster. I quickly typed in Morgan's number and it rang 3 times. "Hello? Who is this?" I heard her asked. I let out a sigh of relief. "Oh thank god, you picked up." I said, laughing. "ALEX!" She said excitedly. "Keep it down." I said, "You don't know if it could be bugged." I could practically envision her nodding. "I couldn't call you back from my phone, and I just checked my messages. I haven't had my phone on in a while. Don't tell the class I'm alive until all of this blows over. Tell the rest of them—hey, call Dina and Deuce and leave messages. But don't tell the class, I don't want to risk the 7 finding out. I wasn't supposed to leave the car, I wasn't supposed to even turn on my phone." I said quickly. "Is everything ok?" She asked. It took me a while to figure out whether I should tell her the truth, or just flat out lie to her and claim that everything was perfectly ok.

"Mostly—I mean we're alive and we're working on figuring all of this out. So that's a plus. But, to tell you the truth it's a lot bigger than what you see on TV and even what President Ellis knows. We're working on figuring this out." I said. I looked behind me to see Tony leaving the dressing rooms, in his new clothes. "I've got to go." I said quickly, "Bye." She said, then I hung up. I looked back towards the store again, he was close to the door, and I bolted back towards the car. I had left my door open, so I just jumped it. I slammed the door and buckled up. I scrambled to turn my phone off, just as Tony got back into the car, I threw my phone into my bag. "Ok, so we're going to drive around the mall until I see a hardware store." He said. He adjusted the rearview mirror to look at me. "Ok?" He asked. I nodded. "Do you know how to make a taser?" He asked. I nodded again. "Good, then you'll be in charge of making a couple of those. "I still have a taser on me." I said, "It's in my bag." He nodded, and put the car into gear, readjusting the mirror. "I need one that I can have on my hand, like my repulsers." I nodded, "Why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D make stuff like that?" I asked. He shook his head, "I don't know. But Fury's a pain in the ass, so he probably just doesn't want his precious agents to have better tech than he does." He grumbled. I smiled and almost started laughing. _He _on the other hand seemed to think that it was hilarious. We drove around the entire mall until we found a Home Depot. The both of us got out of the car, me taking Buster with me. That's when I actually got to look at Tony.

"Why are you dressed like Gary?" I asked. He took out an ID which wasn't his. "Gary left his ID on the table with a note; he said I could just mail it back to him." He said. I nodded, that seemed like something Gary, the crazy Iron Man fan would do. "Gary Ian Walden." I said, peering down at the ID. "Why don't you go get some dog food or something—and then some food for us, I'm starving." He said. "Can I have some money?" I asked. He handed me 3 twenty dollar bills. "What do you want to eat?" I asked before he walked into the store, "Subway. Surprise me." He said. Then he walked into the hardware store. I looked at the $60 I had in my hand. "I think we have enough money for what we need." I said. Then I walked into the PetSmart. It was about 45 minutes until closing. I grabbed whatever I thought I'd need. So Buster walked out of there with a new leash, a bag of dog food, a box of biscuits, and a blanket. I still had enough money for Subway sandwiches. I dumped the load in the car and met him in the Home Depot. "Done." I said as I walked up to the cart. "How did you get Buster in the store?" He asked, "I may or may not have told the guy to fuck off." I said sheepishly. "I've got everything, let's just go." He said, "Before you get us arrested." He muttered the last part under his breath. "I heard that Tony." I said. "I know, you were meant to." He said. He was worse than any adult I'd ever know. He could joke like my friends, but he could be as overprotective as a parent was supposed to be.

I don't know why that made me feel scared really, really scared. "I'm going to go eat my sandwich." I said, heading back to the car. Luckily, the cashier just gave me a dirty look as I walked outside of the store, even though most people would have called the cops. I guess, whatever state we were in at that point, had calmer people. I just wanted to get everything over with. I wanted to go home; I wanted to never see Tony again. That's how bad of a mood I was in. Tony had done so much to piss me off, and I was helping him stop a bad guy. It wasn't much longer until Tony got back to the car. After shoving everything into the trunk, we finally started heading to a hotel. They bought the fact that he said he was Gary, even though the ID didn't look that much like him. Then he took the bags from the car, and went to his room. I took Buster up the backstairs, and went into my room. I walked over to Tony's room and he handed me what I'd need to make the hand-taser. I spent about half the night working on it, that and watching The Eleventh Hour on BBC America. I don't give a damn what Tony thinks, you can't separate me from Doctor Who with a crowbar if you try. But, I did learn that America cut things out of the broadcast on BBC America, so they could fit in all the stupid commercials that everybody hates. Stupid American broadcasting ideals. Why are commercials more important than the actual show? Nobody buys that stuff until it's in a store. Why am I talking about commercials and BBC America? I have absolutely no clue; I know I'm crazy and I don't care.

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**Ok, so Alex feels a bit guilty and her friends are worried sick AND they want to kill her. **


	16. Chapter 15

**Ok, so this is an action scene I made up out of thin air, because it never said A: When Tony built all that stuff (Beside a small cut scene that looked like it was in a hotel) B: How he got to Miami so fast (Except the fact that he was there around mid-day).**

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Chapter 15: The Hotel attack

I think it was about midnight when I went to bed. That was why it was so annoying when he woke me again at 1 am. I was pretty fast asleep, even though I had only been out for an hour. I was curled up against my watchdog, who was dreaming of chasing something. As I know my dog pretty well, I'm guessing it was an Extremis soldier or The Mandarin. Do you want to know how he woke me up? Tony woke me up when he started pounding on my door at exactly 1:03 am screaming at the top of his lungs, "Open the fucking door Alex!" Needless to say he scared the shit out of me and I thought the hotel was on fire. After a minute of trying to get myself together I realized; 1: It sounded like an emergency, 2: We had probably been caught. That meant that Tony had done something to get us caught. So that pissed me off quite a bit. He continued to pound on the door until I scrambled out of bed and ripped the door open. "Get dressed." He said quickly. He threw the car keys at me, which I barely caught. Then he slammed the door and bolted down the hall to his room. I still had no fucking clue what was going on. I threw the keys on the bed and picked my glasses and phone off of the dresser. I got dressed and managed to find the few things I had left in the room. I leashed Buster and ran out the door; I could have cared less if they caught me with him. When I got out in the hallway, people were running around screaming and yelling. Nobody seemed to notice the 12 year old with bags and a German shepherd.

I looked towards Tony's room, the door was open and the room was empty. Nothing that we had brought was left in there. Then I saw the reason why everybody was freaking out. Extremis burns were on the wall, and a very familiar dead man was standing at the end of the hall. Savin. The sight of him was enough to send me running down the hall and down the backstairs. Buster wanted to face him for some reason, I think had to do with his doggy-pride. Within 5 minutes I was at the car, the trunk was popped and the bags were in it. I slammed it closed and unlocked the doors. I could tell that Tony picked the lock on the back; it had the same keyhole as everything else. I unlocked the back door and practically shoved Buster into the seat, I threw my bags after him and slammed the door. I unlocked the front door and started the car, looking around for Tony. His bags were in the trunk as well as the supplies and tools, so he had been there. I was tempted to go look for him, or even just yell out his name. But I didn't want to risk Savin hearing me—or anyone else. I waited for a few minutes; the back parking lot we were in was surprisingly empty. I didn't see anyone in sight, so I started to walk around. I got to the edge of the building, and looked out. People were still running around in panic, and something started a fire. Then I turned back around. "TONY!" I yelled, seeing no other option. He wasn't there, he just wasn't there. I called his name again, "TONY!" He still didn't answer.

"Where the hell is he?" I asked myself. I started walking back towards the car. I was thinking that maybe Tony would show up soon. I was tempted to just sit in the car and wait, but Savin could be coming at any moment. I looked through the trunk for Tony's phone, and I didn't find it. I looked at Buster, who was now lying in the driver's seat, his head and front paws off the seat, enjoying the fresh air—which was filling quickly with smoke. I walked over to the hotel again, against the wall. For some reason, these places still had payphones. I inserted a couple quarters and dialed his cellphone number. It went straight to voicemail; he must have had it off. "Hey, this is the cell phone of Tony Stark, you know what to do." It said. "Ok, so where the fuck are you? I'm waiting by the car. Are you coming or not, because there's a fire in the right parking lot? We need to go right now." I heard a noise behind me, and I whirled around. There he was, Savin. From behind my back, I hung up the phone. He grinned at me like the maniac he was. "Well, well, well… what do we have here?" He asked, taking steps closer to me. Soon enough, I had my back against the wall. He was standing between me and the car. "He drops a water tower—then you steal my car. What's next?" He asked. My back was flat against the wall, and I was trying to get even farther away from him. Buster bolted out from the car, intent on protecting his owner.

He was snarling, worse than he did the last time. He took advantage of the fact that Savin was focused on me, so he lunged. His teeth made contact with skin for less than a second, before he was flung off. I heard a quiet yelp and a smash before he landed in the bushes. It worried me that he didn't move and didn't try and get up again. Savin did all of that without taking an eye off me, and he was so close I didn't get the chance to move. I took a deep breath and he got closer to me, until his breath was on my face. I was trying hard to stay calm, my arms still up in defense. He ripped my arm from where I had it and slammed it up against the wall above my head. In the brief moment he was doing that, he was distracted and I kicked him as hard as I could and ducked under his arm. His hand was still on my right arm and I could see in his eyes what he was trying to do. Not even a second later I screamed out in pain and pulled against him again, this time getting free. I didn't even bother to examine my arm; the throbbing pain was enough to let me know that something wasn't right. I scrambled to the bush and used my left arm to grab Buster by the collar. I dragged him and almost threw him in the front seat. Savin started approaching me again, "TONY!" I screamed again. I was so relieved when Tony came scrambling around the corner, another 3 bags and something big and bulky I think he stole. I climbed in the driver's seat once again and placed Buster in the back.

The car wasn't on, even though I knew I left it on. "God damn it!" I snapped, hitting my hands on the wheel, which only caused more pain on my arm. Savin was blocking Tony from the car, and I needed to get it started. I jiggled the key in the ignition at least 10 times before it started. When Tony heard the engine start, he jumped the trunk and ran to the driver's seat. I quickly moved to the passenger and felt relieved when I heard the thud that was Savin and the skidding of the wheels. "What did he do to you?" Tony asked, when he saw me clutching my arm. I took my hand away, to see all the blood and the burn mark. "Extremis burn." I whimpered out. Tony pulled over on the side of the road; then got out and ran to the trunk. He crammed the other stuff in the trunk, and came back with a first aid kit. I turned slightly so he could examine my arm. "Oh my god… we need to go to a hospital!" Tony said, looking horrified. "Tony—we don't have time to go to a hospital. Not with this going on." I said, trying to pass off my arm as not-a-big-deal. "Alex, that's maybe a 3rd degree burn." He said. "No, no, it's not. I've seen 3rd deg—degree burns. At most—2nd degree." I said. He took out his phone, and I could tell he was looking it up. I was still groaning a bit, that's how much pain I was in. "Ok—ok, so it is a 2nd degree burn." He said, calming down a bit. "But why is it bleeding—this says nothing about bleeding?" Tony asked, confused and getting concerned again. "He slammed my arm into the wall. I'm lucky he didn't break it—by the way when you're done—make sure he didn't break my dog." I said, still wincing in pain.

Tony made me get out of the car, and started using a water bottle to try and cool down the burn. I winced again, but it didn't hurt as bad as it had before. He continued to do that, going through multiple water bottles, longer than he should have, but as long as it said he should. "Tony we need to go." I said, insisting that we got out of there. "Not until I treat the fucking burn." He said, even more insistent than I was. The water washed off the blood, or at least most of it. Then he wrapped it in gauze and handed Advil. Then we, finally, got back into the car and drove off. "How long until we get there?" I asked. "Next morning." He said, "Without sleep or stopping." I pushed down the passenger seat and reached over to check on Buster, who started licking my hand. "He's ok." I said, happy even though it still kind of hurt. "Maybe we should stop by a hospital, just in case." He said. "Tony, we don't need to. It said on the website, treat it like a minor burn if it was 3 inches or less. Just get on the fucking highway or I will drive this car." I threatened. I could still tell that he was skeptical, "Tony… as soon as this is over you can take me to a hospital." I promised. He nodded, as if that was good enough. I knew that if I didn't keep an eye on him the entire time, he would take me to a hospital. We couldn't afford to be caught, and it said to treat it like a minor burn. "As soon as we get on the highway—I'm taking a nap." I said.

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**Well, that last part was kind of filler. But you learned how to treat a Second Degree burn, and that Tony Stark will listen to what an irrational 12 year old says, even when she was burnt by a Maniac who's car they stole.**


	17. Chapter 16

**Ok, so my life sucks right now. I hate life so much, but I'm going to finish this story.**

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Chapter 16: Didn't notice

It was around 8:00 am when we got to Miami. That's how fast Tony was driving. God knows how we escaped getting at least 100 different speeding tickets and another 100 for illegal turns and cutting corners and almost causing 7 different wrecks. I don't know why Pepper trusted him at all behind the wheel of a car. Or really at all. Because he got me into that mess, and I wasn't too pleased. I would have been happy if everything had stopped back in New York. But did it? No. Was I lucky? Maybe. Did I want to be in a car with a rich idiot? Hell no! The entire time I would have rather been back in my shitty New York apartment, watching Doctor Who, cussing out my Parrot, taking my cats out of the refrigerator, and playing with my dog. But nooo. I was stuck in a car going 90 miles an hour on a highway with a guy playing show tunes and talking about the latest upgrade he made on the Mark 45. He was on like Mark 4 during New York, but around 7 months later he was on Mark 45. When we were still in New York, he was on like Mark 30. I think that was the one Tyler hijacked, and I nearly broke when I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him across the rooftop. Yeah, I have a lot of anger issues. I'm working on it. I was at that point too, but I'm not doing too well. I think I dozed off some point during the ride, though we had been on the highway for about an hour. I think I drifted more than once, but it took a while before I finally fell asleep. Tony was still rambling on about his new suit design, but I didn't tell him that I knew everything he was saying better than he did.

I had hacked his computer and convinced JARVIS to let me download a lot of his plans. Then I completely deleted the suit part, and combined some of his formulas with my idea for a super computer that would be stronger than JARVIS, the suit, and well… it would look like the 11th Doctor's TARDIS console room. Don't judge me, I may be crazy, but I do have some good ideas and good taste in TV shows. I think it was about 4 hours later that he realized I was no longer listening to him. "Alex!" He snapped, smacking my shoulder. I flailed a bit and hit my hand on the window. That was enough to shock me back into reality. "OW!" I said, shaking my hand. "We're here." He said, we were in the middle of a town. I groaned, "So it begins today." I stated. He nodded. "Find some park or something—we can park there to set up." I said. Buster tried to climb into the front seat, "No." I said, pushing him back. He did it again, "I said no." I repeated. He eventually managed to climb on top of me and started scratching at the glove box. "What is it?" I asked, trying to maneuver so I didn't have his butt in my face. He stopped scratching and just stared at it. "What is it?" I asked again. Tony was pulling into some field behind some mall. "Buster move so I can see what's in there." I said, pushing him back. I went to press the button and he growled at me. I tried again, and he continued to growl. Then it hit me. "Tony stop the car." I said, realization dawning on me. "Let me find a place where we have room to set it—" I cut him off.

"Tony stop the car." I repeated. "Why?" He asked, clearly confused by my behavior. "Watch." I said my voice barely a whisper. I went to push the button with the glove compartment. Buster growled again and nudged my hand away, still standing at alert. Tony's eyes widened and he quickly put the car in park, making it lurch. His seatbelt was off and his door was open before the car stopped moving. But he didn't get out of the car. His head snapped in my direction. "Maybe it's something good—maybe he's hungry. Maybe it's bacon." He rambled. I got close to touching it again, Buster started snarling once again. "Why would he be doing that?" I asked. He didn't give me an answer. He flew out of the car and over to my side. I ripped my seatbelt off and pushed Buster outside the car. I jumped out and Buster tried to climb back in. I took my bag out of the backseat and leashed him up. Tony was unloading the car as fast as he possibly could. I took some of the bags and left them by a tree, then I tied Buster to one of its branches. It was the thickest one it had, but it was still pretty thin. I didn't know how long it would hold him. He was a pretty strong dog, taking down that many Chitauri during the battle. He howled and thrashed, trying to get loose. Tony followed my example and put the other bags down. Buster growled at him like he was a foreign enemy, not the man he had been sitting in a car with or the man who had offered us a roof to stay under when we didn't have one.

He was acting like Tony was the enemy standing in his way. "Shut up and let us work." Tony said, walking back over to the car. I turned towards the interior. I slowly climbed back into the seat. Buster howled and thrashed again, I could hear the branch I tied him to bending and snapping back. Buster was attempting to come back to the car in a frenzy, willing to kill himself if it meant keeping me safe. The branch made a cracking noise, but snapped back once again. I pulled the box wrapped in a blanket out from under the seat and handed it back to Tony, never taking my eyes off the glove box. "Alex what is this?" He asked. "Extremis. I found it earlier." I said. I didn't offer an explanation, and he didn't ask for one. Tony must have set the box by Buster, because I heard a thud, which was Tony hitting the ground. "Damn dog!" He snapped. I gently placed my ear against the glove box. There was a steady ticking, a ticking I had dismissed earlier. One that had been heard when the music wasn't on. "Tony it's been here the entire time." I said, turning around in horror. "The entire time we had the car. He was ready for this." I slowly moved out of the seat and he pushed past me to get in it. "Alex take the stuff and go." He said. "What?" I asked. "This thing is going to blow soon—I can tell with how close together the ticks are. You heard me, go." He said. I was confused, honestly confused.

"We can just leave it to blow up." I said, "The only thing in this field is grass and some dead trees." I said. "This blast radius could be half the city of Miami." He said. "Let me defuse it, then I'll meet you later. Go find his mansion." He said, acting like defusing a bomb was an easy task. "It could be wired to the button." I said. He nodded and waved me off again, about to push the button. I grabbed the bags I had room to hold, then tied the rest to Buster's leash. I removed him from the tree and he nearly ripped my arm out of its socket. "Come on." I said, pulling him in the other direction. Buster looked back at me, confused as to why we would leave Tony there alone with a bomb. "Come on!" I said again. He seemed to take the hint. It took me a while to drag him out of the field, as every few feet he would stop and turn around. Then once we got out of the field, I took off running. Buster was still running behind me, but he wasn't as slow as he had been before. I stopped in the middle of a park. I sat down on a bench and started typing in everything I needed to. My computer was throwing row after row of codes, trying to decipher whatever it was JARVIS had sent to my computer. Not many people were in the park, and surprisingly nobody was paying attention to the girl with all the bags, the dog, and a laptop. I paused for a second, bouncing my laptop on my knee. "Come on. Come on. Come on. Hurry up. Hurry up. Hurry up." I said. There had been no explosion yet, and I still would have heard it—or been caught up in it. But that was worst case scenario. Why do I use the British pronunciation when I use that word?

Or any word? What is wrong with me? Why am I obsessed with Doctor Who? I have no idea. Back on track, within a minute, I had the Mandarin's exact address. "Got it." I said. I was about to snap my laptop closed, but then I saw a Skype request. It was Morgan, again. I didn't even decline it. I just turned off my laptop and packed it back in my bag. I grabbed Buster's leash and the bags and just started walking. "This sucks… too much secrecy." I grumbled. But I continued walking, nothing good would come if I just gave up. Within less than half an hour, I was standing at the bottom of the hill from the Mandarin's mansion. "Yep. This is it." I said. I looked down at Buster, "And I'm talking to a dog." I looked down at my watch. 9:30 am. "Where the fuck is Tony?" I asked, through my own gritted teeth. I was talking to myself pretty quietly, so thankfully nobody heard me. But there was still dread filling me quickly as I said it. "Hey Kid!" I heard somebody ask me. I flipped around. He looked like a body guard, but with no uniform. Private Security, I guessed. "What are you doing here?" He asked. I held my hand over my eyes so I could look at him against the sun. "Waiting for my ride." I said, which wasn't a complete lie. "Ok then." He said, "Did your ride tell you to wait in front of the biggest building here?" He asked. I nodded, when you lie it's better just to nod and pretend like you're acting. If you are a good actor, if you're a sucky actor, then you need to pretend that it's the truth. Or pretend that you're in a FanFiction or something. "Ok. Just don't go inside." He said, walking back to his post. I looked around, pretending like nothing was going on. Then, I heard an explosion. I saw it over the top of the trees. And I panicked.

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**For reading this story, you must put a review in the box.**


	18. Chapter 17

**Life seriously sucks right not. So that might become inspiration, or my Mom breaking down crying again. So I might not be back for a while. Just hope it's before Captain America comes out, but Alex won't be in that one.**

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Chapter 17: The Mandarin's headquarters

I was close to having a panic attack in the middle of the sidewalk. I didn't even waste any time. I took off back towards the explosion. I pushed past people not caring at the insults they shot back. I nearly tripped over myself multiple times. You would not believe how relieved I felt when I saw that car stopped at a stoplight. He honked the horn and waved me over. I ran as quickly as I could with all the bags and nearly jumped back into the passenger seat. "There might be a new crater in that field, but I was able to dial the power back a bit." He said. I slapped him. "What the hell was that for?" He asked. "I thought you were dead—again." I said. He rolled his eyes, "Tony Stark doesn't die easy." He pointed out. "Don't rely on that." I said, "Things are going to get real soon." I said. "You're making this sound like an action movi—"" He stopped, "In your old world this would have been an action movie." He noted. I nodded, "And I wouldn't be in it." I added. He nodded, "I don't know how we would have survived to this part if you hadn't been in it." He said. "Oh please, I didn't play that big of a part in it." I said. He looked at me funny, "For the past 7 months, you've been blacklisted by S.H.I.E.L.D as a potential threat. _I _was almost blacklisted as a potential threat. They only do that for people with skill—people that they're afraid of." The look on my face was enough to make him shut up.

"That came out wrong didn't it?" He asked. I nodded, looking at the dash. "I meant—people with skills, good skills." He said, trying to drag himself out of the hole he had dug. "Hacking, tracking, stealing, lying, spying on people, enhanced strength, enhanced brain capacity, high IQ; The Perfect S.H.I.E.L.D agent." I said, still not looking up from the dash. "The Perfect S.H.I.E.L.D agent." Tony repeated, then he looked at me, still trying to focus on the dash. Buster whined in the backseat, pushing some of the bags around. He seemed to know what Tony was going to say. "It was Coulson that called you that, wasn't it?" He asked. I simply nodded. He continued to drive around, trying to find a spot where he could park and get ready to break in. "You got pretty close to him didn't you?" He asked. "I trusted him." I said, "I trusted him more than my family—more than you guys." He didn't press me, but I could tell he wanted to know more. I sighed, "When I came in to work on the Tesseract project, it was him that found me. I used my 'Father' as a threat, trying to keep them from taking me in. He was the one that questioned me about it. The first person that really believed me." He could tell that meant a lot to me. Even Steve had thought I was insane. He turned me into S.H.I.E.L.D because of it. "While I worked on the Tesseract project, he and Selvig were the only people that made an effort to get to know me. They were nice to me, they trusted me… and in turn I decided that I could trust them." He sighed.

"I'm sorry." He said, "We all are." I said. "You can't blame Fury for his death." Tony said. "Yes I can. I blame him and Loki. Everything that happened back in New York, was because of them. They caused everything that happened to us. Fury—I honestly think he didn't mean to. I mean, he could have let them nuke Manhattan. But I can't trust him anymore. I don't see how you can." I said. I was ranting at that point, so I didn't really think when I saw Tony tense at the wheel. "I never said I did." He responded through gritted teeth. I didn't seem to realize what I was doing. "Steve said it himself; he had the same blood on his hands as Loki did." I scoffed, more out of disgust for Fury than anything. Tony came to an abrupt stop and was out of the car. We were in an area where he could get ready. That was the only upside to it. I didn't realize that I was driving him to an anxiety attack. Even worse, I was doing it to myself. Before that I could tell, before he had them because it had happened to me so many times during the 7 months after New York. I felt guilty, I had carried on about it for so long, and I forgot about his anxiety for a while. When he finally came back to the car he took the bags out and got ready. "I want you to follow behind me." He said, not looking at me. I could tell he was kind of pissed. Ok, he was really pissed. He briefly glanced up at me, "Do you still have that gun?" He asked, referring to the one I carried in New York. I took it out of my backpack. It was in worse shape than it was then, scratched, discolored, and it looked like it had been thrown into a wall… which it had been, many, many times. But it still worked. He nodded, "Stay out of sight behind me." He said, "Don't get close until you think it's safe. Got it?" He asked. I nodded, and got out of the car.

Buster whined, I looked down at my bag, which I didn't think I would be able to carry the entire time. I set it down beside the lake, along with my backpack. I just hoped that they wouldn't find it. He followed after me the entire time we were walking, not wandering off once. When we finally got onto the compound Tony lead the way, electrocuting guards and sneaking his way in. All I had to do was follow him. Getting in the building was actually the easy part. I guess the hard part was going to be getting to the Mandarin. Once inside the building, we got to what looked like a living room/strip club. I add strip club because there was a half-naked woman lying on the couch with a pissed off guard watching her from the corner. "Why is it so hot in here? I told you to put it at sixty-eight." She said. "My fault again. Let me tell you something sweetheart, I am not your personal..." The guard started to say. Tony snuck up from behind and electrocuted that guard as well. He picked up the gun. "Let's go." He mouthed, nodding towards a hallway. We found our way to the film set. It was only using half of the room. The other half had a bed, with two women in it. The women didn't see us, but when we heard a flush we hid behind the bed. "Well, I wouldn't go in there for twenty minutes!" He said, laughing. "Now, which one of you is Vanessa?" He asked. One of the party girls raised her hand.

"That's me." He started walking over, but grabbed a fortune cookie. "Ah, Nessie! Did you know that fortune cookies aren't even Chinese?" He asked. Anybody that had watched his broadcasts knew that. Tony peeked out from behind the bedpost and got spotted by one of the girls. "There's some guy over here..." She said, but the Mandarin didn't hear her. "They're made by Americans, based on... based on the Japanese recipes." He said. Tony moved past me and quickly came out from behind the post with the gun pointed at the Mandarin. "Hey!" He yelled. I stepped out from behind him, Buster following me. With 2 people with guns, and a growling German shepherd were enough to make him immediately put his hands up. "Bloody hell. Bloody hell." He said. "Don't move." Tony said. I tried to move past him, but he pushed me back. I'm guessing it was supposed to be protection. But I didn't exactly want to be near whatever kind of psychotic women would take the money to sleep with a terrorist. One of the women reached out to pet Buster. Buster looked up at me; I swear to you he looked uncomfortable. She wasn't doing him any harm, so I kept my gun pointed at the Mandarin but nudged him a little closer to me. I swear this dog looked like he was pissed at me. "I'm not moving. If you want something, take it, although the guns are all fake because those wankers wouldn't trust me with the real ones." He said, confusing both of us. "What?" Tony asked. "Hey, do you fancy either of the birds?"

I think at that point he was only confusing me. I think Tony knew what that meant. Hell I think Buster knew what that meant. I think it's a drug. "Heard enough. You're not him. The Mandarin, the real guy, where?! Where's the Mandarin?! Where is he?!" Tony yelled, looking ready to pull the trigger. "Whoa! Whoa! He's here. He's here." He yelled. The Mandarin sat down and pointed at himself. "But he's not here. He's here, but he's not here." He said. "What do you mean?" I asked, poking past Tony. "It's complicated. Hey, it's complicated, alright?" He said. "It is?" Tony asked. "It's complicated." The Mandarin said again. "Uncomplicate it. Ladies out. Get out of the bed, get in the bathroom." Tony said. The women followed his order. We both kept the guns pointed at the Mandarin. "Sit." Tony said. After the two girls left the room, the Mandarin tried to sneak away. But we noticed in time and I shot in front of him before Tony got the chance. The Mandarin got back in his chair. "My name is Trevor, Trevor Slattery." He said. "What are you? What're you a decoy? You're a double, right?" Tony asked. "What? Like an understudy? No, absolutely not." The Mandarin—Trevor said. We pointed the guns back at him. "Don't hurt the face! I'm an actor." Trevor yelled. "You got a minute to live, fill it with words." Tony said. "Just a role. 'The Mandarin', see, it's not real." Trevor said.

"Then how did you get here, Trevor?" Tony asked. "Um... well, I um... I have a little problem with, um... substances, and I ended up, um... doing things, no two ways about it, in the street that a man shouldn't do." Trevor said, trying to explain it to us. But I could tell it was awkward with an impressionable pre-teen girl standing in the room. "Next!" Tony yelled, not caring about the fact that any of this could scar me for life. "And then, they approached me about the role and they knew about the drugs." Trevor said. "What did they say they'd get you off 'em?" Tony asked. I rolled my eyes, even I knew he wouldn't want to be off the drugs. "Said they'd give me more. They gave me things, they gave me this palace. They gave me plastic surgery. They gave me things." He said happily. Then he closed his eyes, snoring. "Did you just nod off?" Tony asked. Then he turned to me, "Did he just nod off?" He asked again. I nodded, "Kick him or something." I whispered. Tony kicked his leg. "Hey!" He yelled. "No!" He yelled, "And a lovely speedboat! And the thing was, he needed someone to take credit for some 'accidental explosions'." I glared at him. "He? Killian?" Tony asked. "Killian." He repeated. "He created you?" Tony asked. "He created me." He repeated. "Custom-made terror threat." Tony said, as if he should have expected that. He then rose to get some drinks.

We didn't shoot, but we kept the guns trained on him, prepared for anything he might do. "Yes! Yes! His think tank thinked it up, the pathology of the serial killer. The manipulation of Western iconography." He said. It was a pretty good plan, completely awful, but it was a good plan. He then put on the Mandarin voice. "Ready for another lesson? Blah blah blah. Of course, it was my performance that brought the Mandarin to life." He said. "Your performance? Where people die?" Tony nearly snapped. "No, they didn't. Look around you, costumes, green screen. Oh, honestly, I wasn't on location for half this stuff. When I was, it was movie magic, love." Trevor said. "I'm sorry, but I got a best friend who's in a coma and he might not wake up. So you're gonna have to answer for that. You're still going down, pal. You under..." Tony started to say. Suddenly I felt a hand clamp down on my mouth and somebody drag me from behind, somebody kicked Buster and knocked him out. I tried to scream or do anything to warn Tony but I couldn't, and it was too late anyway. Then Savin came from behind Tony, and he turned to shoot him, but Savin knocked him unconscious. I struggled against whoever had grabbed me, trying to get the gun to a point where I wouldn't shoot myself. The hand moved from my mouth for not even a second. A rag was placed against my face, chloroform. Then I was out.

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	19. Chapter 18

**THIS IS IMPORTANT!**

**REPEAT: THIS IS IMPORTANT!**

**I REPEAT AGAIN: THIS IS IMPORTANT!**

**Ok, so I looked at my story views, and I saw that nobody looked at like 5 of the middle chapters. I promise, that it will get better, but if you're going to understand the stories, then you need to read all of the chapters.**

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Chapter 18: Laboratory Rats

When I woke up, we were in a lab. Tony was zip-tied to a bed frame, I was handcuffed to a pole, leaning against Buster as he was tied to it. I was thankful I didn't take my bags inside. I was still kind of dazed, but I was able to shake out of it quickly. I stood up, slowly, as it took some time to get the handcuff to move up with me. That's how tight it was on the pole. Living with people like the ones I did, you learned how to deal with chloroform. "I see somebody's awake." I heard a voice said. "Maya." I grumbled. "Yeah." She said. "Handcuffs, really? That's the best you can do?" I asked. She rolled her eyes. "You've been spending too much time with Tony." She said. I nodded, "Yeah, that's the same thing Pepper said. Where is Pepper anyway?" She didn't answer me, and went back to working on her computer. I fidgeted with the handcuffs, but gave up after a while. I checked my jacket pocket, then looked at the table. My knife was there as well. Tony woke up not even a minute later. He glanced over at me I rolled my wrist in the handcuff and pulled again. "Just like old times, huh?" Maya said, turning back to Tony. "Oh yeah, with zip-ties. It's a ball." Tony responded sarcastically. "It wasn't my idea." Maya claimed. "Okay, so you took Killian's card." Tony stated. "I took his money." Maya answered. "And here you are, thirteen years later in a dungeon." Tony said. "No." She said. "Yeah." Tony said. "No, you two are in a dungeon. I'm free to go." She said. "Yeah." Tony said.

She looked at me, "Why do you think it's handcuffs?" She said. Then it hit me, she kind of counted on me getting out. I fidgeted with it once again. There was no way I could slide it down the pole, or reach any farther out. Then she walked over to Tony, "A lot's happened, Tony, but I'm close. Extremis is practically stable." She said. "I'm telling you it isn't! I'm on the street; people are going 'bang', they're painting the walls. Maya, you're kidding yourself." He said. I saw something that looked like part of a zip-tie behind the bedframe. I bent down as much as I could and tried to grab it. It was too far away. The way Buster was tied up, he couldn't have reached it either. "Then help me fix it." Maya asked. She held up a not, which was on a 'Hello my name is' badge. In that slot, he'd written 'You know who I am'. She turned the note, and there was most of an equation. "Did I do that?" Tony asked, clearly confused. "Yes." Maya said, clearly holding onto the hope that he could help her. I felt sorry for her, 13 years later. "I remember the night, not the morning. Is this what you've been chasing around?" Tony asked. She looked hurt and maybe even betrayed. "You don't remember?" She asked. I tried again, this time using my foot. I slid it back to me and bent down to pick it up. "I can't help you. You used to have a moral psychology. You used to have ideals. You wanted to help people, now look at you. I get to wake up every morning with someone who...still has her soul." Tony said.

I picked it up and started fashioning it into a key. Maya looked at him with tears in her eyes, "Get us out of here. Come on." He said. She just turned and walked away from him. At that time, Aldrich walked into the lab. "You know what my old man used to say to me? One of his favorite of many sayings, 'The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.'" He said, almost happily. I only worked faster on trying to get it to unlock. "You're not still pissed about the Switzerland thing, are you?" Tony asked, almost sheepish. "How can I be pissed at you, Tony? I'm here to thank you. You gave me the greatest gift that anybody's ever given me. Desperation. If you think back to Switzerland, you said you'd meet me on the rooftop, right? Well for the first twenty minutes, I actually thought you'd show up. And the next hour, I... well I considered taking that one step shortcut to the lobby, if you know what I mean." Aldrich said. "Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out what happened to the first mouse." Tony said. "Shut up!" I snapped. "But as I looked out over that city, nobody knew I was there, nobody could see me, no one was even looking. I had a thought that would guide me for years to come. Anonymity, Tony. Thanks to you, it's been my mantra ever since, right? You simply rule from behind the scenes. Because the second you give evil a face, a Bin Laden, a Gaddafi, The Mandarin, you hand the people a target." Aldrich said. It was true, not in a good way, it was true. "You're something else." Tony said. "You have met him, I assume?" Aldrich asked. "Yeah, Sir Lawrence Oblivier." Tony asked.

"I know he's a little over the top sometimes. It's not entirely my fault, he has a tend...he's a stage actor. They say his Lear was the toast of Croydon, wherever that is. Anyway, the point is, ever since that big dude with the hammer fell out of the sky, subtlety's kinda had its day." He said. Once again, true. "What's next for you in your world?" Tony asked. "Well, I wanted to repay you with the same gift that you so graciously imparted to me." He said. Why did I have a feeling that it wasn't going to be good? Because he said Tony made him want to jump off a roof. That's why. He threw 3 metal balls onto the floor, and they rolled to a stop. Just like he did in Pepper's office. Speaking of Pepper, there she was, on the screen, tied up. "Desperation. Now, this is live. I'm not sure if you can tell, but at this moment the body is trying to decide whether to accept Extremis or just give up." He said, almost like he was giving a lecture. Pepper was glowing orange and crying out in pain, as Extremis tried to work. "And if it gives up, I have to say the denotation is... it's quite spectacular. But until that point, it's really just a lot of pain." He said. He turned off the image. "We haven't even talked salary yet." He walked up to Tony and grabbed him by the throat. I screamed. "What kind of perk package are you thinking of? Hm?" Aldrich said. Aldrich started glowing orange. I only worked faster with the paper clip. "Let him go." Maya said. "Hold on, hold on." He said, then turned back to Maya. He let go of Tony's throat.

"Maya..." He said. "I said let him go—let them both go!" She yelled. She pointed an Extremis injector at herself. "What are you doing?" He asked. "1200cc's, a dose half of this size, I'm dead." She said. I could tell she was serious, and I prayed that he would give in. He needed her help, but that wouldn't stop him. "It's times like these my temper is tested somewhat. Maya, give me the injector." He said. I worked faster with the key. "If I die, Killian, what happens to your soldiers? What happens to your product?" She asked. "We're not doing this, okay?" He asked. "What happens to you? What happens if you go too hot?" She asked. Aldrich paused for a moment, then looked at Tony as he pointed a gun at Maya. I closed my eyes before he shot. Then I heard her drop. "The good news is, a high level position has just been vacated." He said. "You're a maniac." Tony said, narrowing his eyes. "No, I'm a visionary. But I do own a maniac, and he takes the stage tonight." He walked out of the lab. I continued to work with the lock. It was harder than I remembered. I hadn't had to work with something like that in a long time. Before I had just been able to slide my knife into it and get it open. I couldn't get to the knife, or my gun. Maya was dead. Tony and I were trapped. There was nothing I could do. It wasn't like I could be of any use to them at the moment.

There were two guards sent to keep an eye on us. The alarm on the Dora watch started going off, that meant the Mark 42 should have been ready. One of the henchmen picked up the watch. "Careful there, it's a limited edition." Tony said. Then he turned to the other guard, "Hey, uh...Ponytail Express. What's the mileage count between Tennessee and Miami?" Tony asked. "Eight hundred and thirty two miles." The man said. "Very nice." I said; it was impressive. It took me 3 years to memorize the length between my house and my school. "I'm good like that." He said. He turned to the other guard. I took the chance to start fidgeting with the zip-tie again. No luck. "Can you, uh... stop that?" He asked. "Break it, you bought it!" Tony said. The guard simply dropped the watch, and stomped on it. "I think I bought it." He said. "Okay, that wasn't mine to give away. That belongs to my friend's sister, and that's why I'm gonna kill you first." Tony said. I gave up on trying to use the zip-tie. I bent down as much as I could and was able to get the handcuff as close as I could to Buster's collar. He seemed to understand me, and leaned closer. I used it to pick the lock, and this time it worked. I slowly stood up, making it seem as if I still had them on. "What're you gonna do to me?" The guard asked. They were still worried about Tony, so I untied Buster. I pointed over to the knife and gun, "Get it." I whispered. "You'll see." Tony said.

"You're zip-tied to a bed." The guard said. Buster army crawled over to the table, then stood up and grabbed the gun. He dropped it and nudged it across, I picked it up. The guard didn't seem to hear. Tony moved his hand as if to motion his suit. "This." Tony said. They watched him, and I did as well. The guards just stare at him. He moved his hand again, nothing happened. "That." He said. Buster took the knife off the table and walked back over. They were too busy with Tony to care. I checked the gun, no bullets. The knife wasn't enough to kill them. "Trust me, you're gonna be in a puddle of blood on the ground in five, four, three...come on! Two..." Tony said. Nothing happened. "How did we get this shit?" The guard asked. "Alright, I'm gonna give you a chance to escape. Put down your weapons, tie yourselves to those chairs, I'll let you live. In five, four... bang!" Tony said. "Idiot." I said under my breath. "Wow. That was..." One of the guards said. "You should be gone by now, you should have already been gone." Tony said. I rolled my eyes, "I am just beyond terrified." One of the guards joked yet. "Here it comes. Three, four..." Tony said. "Shut up." One of the guards said. I flicked my knife out. They turned to look at me, standing there with a knife pointed at them. They didn't seem to think anything big of it. "Five, four, three, two, one!" Tony finished. The Mark 42 flew in, or pieces of it.

The window smashed and it knocked one of the guards to the ground. "Told ya." Tony said. He used the plasma blaster to knock down the other guy. He freed himself from the bedframe, and knocked out the other guard as the foot part of the suit flew in. He held out his arm, waiting for the rest of the suit to fly in, but nothing happened. "Where's the rest?" He asked. I ran behind the desk, finding Maya still lying there. I moved through the drawers and found some bullets. "They'll work." I said to myself. I ran back around and followed Tony's move. He managed to kill some of the guards as they attacked. He only had the two pieces of the suit, and the guard's gun. I shot at them and made sure to keep Buster back, but Tony tried to make sure I didn't have to kill anyone. I didn't see the point in that, other than he wanted to keep me as sane as he could. Unknown to him that ship had sailed around the time I learned about Doctor Who. A final guard held up his hands, "Honestly, I hate working here. They are so weird." He said. The guard dropped his gun. I waved him off and he ran. As we were walking down the corridor, the rest of the pieces flew in. "Ah, better late than never." Tony said. The face piece flew in. "Not this time. Not the face." He said. He managed to catch it, and put it on its face. "Phew, it's good to be back. Hello, by the way." Tony said. I guessed that JARVIS was back.

"All personnel, Stark and the girl are loose and somewhere in the compound. Repeat: Stark and the girl are loose and somewhere in the compound." We heard across the intercom. Everybody in the compound was going to be looking from us. "Shit." Tony said. I rolled my eyes, "Can't even bother learning my name." We ran outside. We were at the top of the stairs. "Let's go." Tony said. Nothing happened, he was just holding his hands out. "Ah, crap." Tony said. Tony tried to walk down the stairs, but it looked awkward. "Hey, what would you have done if it took off?" I asked. He turned to me. "Find a way out of here." He said. Tony received a call, it was Rhodey. Tony put it on speaker. "Tony..." He said. "Rudy, tell me that was you in the suit." Tony said. "No. You got yours?" He asked. "Uh... um... kind of. Main house as fast as you can. Somebody I'd like you to meet." Tony said. "What are we going to do?" I asked. "Alex?" Rhodey asked, "Are you ok?" I sighed and stretched, "Depends on your definition of ok." I said. "Same smartass humor—kind of like Tony's but not as bad. Alex is alright!" He said. I rolled my eyes and Tony looked hurt. "So you care if she's ok?" He asked.

"You're still an asshole Tony, you're ok." He said. I took the phone from Tony and hung it up. "You have the maturity of a 5 year old." I said. "Do not." He said. "Yes you do Tony, my friends who gossip and talk about television constantly are more mature than you." I said. "I am not immature." He nearly pouted. "Tony will you just admit that it was immature of you." I said. "Oh my god I sound like a mother." I said. "Yes you do… but I am not immature." He said. "We're wasting valuable time here Tony. Let's just go." I said, about to start walking. He grabbed my arm, "I am not going anywhere until you say that I'm not immature." He said. I rolled my eyes and sighed, exasperated. JARVIS came on speaker, "Sir, you were immature. Just let the grownups figure this out and be a good boy." I smiled and tried not to laugh. "I am not immature!" Tony yelled again, "We'll attract attention." I said, gritting my teeth. I was getting tired of it. He finally let go of my arm. "I am so not immature." He said. I was about to say something, but I gave up. "Oh fuck it, I'm not going to argue with you." I said. I walked to go get my bags from where I had set them. "Go to the main house." I called back; Buster followed me as I walked. When I finally returned from retrieving them, still nobody was in the yard. I started hiking back up to the main building, hoping they would be there when I got there.

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**Please, please, please, please review my story. Hey, if you review on your account I will send you a PM of thanks. That's how desperate I am. The first and only review I've gotten is a chain message. By the way how do you get rid of that? It's on somebody's account.**


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